Prof. Ravi Ahuja

…was head of the research group ‘Modern Indian History’ at the Centre for Modern Indian Studies of Georg-August-University Göttingen until his retirement in 2026. He had joined CeMIS as its founding director in 2009. Previously, he had taught at the South Asia Institute in Heidelberg, had conducted research at the Centre for Modern Oriental Studies in Berlin and had worked as a Professor of Modern South Asian History at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London.

As a social historian of South Asia in the 18th through 20th centuries, he has extensively published on the history of labour, of war, and of infrastructure.

His most recent monograph “Shipping Lords and Coolie Stokers: Class, Race, and Maritime Capitalism in the Early 20th Century” was published by Verso in 2024.

Of late, he has been editing a two-volume collection of essays on “Labour in India’s Political Transition (c. 1930 to 1983)” that will be published by Routledge in 2027.

He presently works on a history of India in the twentieth century (together with Camille Buat) and researches life writings of Indian workers.
 
Please note that Ravi Ahuja will no longer provide supervision for new PhD projects.

Together with Rupa Viswanath he used to run the "Historical Sociology" study focus.