Browsing by Author "Priyanka Jha"

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Anagarika Dharmapala: A Leader of Cultural Revivalism in Sri Lanka
(Taylor and Francis, 2025) Priyanka Jha
In the context of British colonialism, there were many thinkers and leaders who stood for cultural critique and revivalism, but there were very few who could gather the kind of attention, stature and significance in the history of one's nation. In Sri Lanka, there were other leaders and monks who had attempted this Herculean task, but it was only Dharmapala who could rise to become the father of Modern Sri Lanka. This feeling resonates even to this day, as he is seen as the leader who helped the Lankans in their pursuit of freedom and independence. Some of his writings were compiled together in the form of a book, Return to Righteousness 1 published by the Government of Sri Lanka, Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs, to commemorate him as the national hero. This publication reflects a very serious attempt by the government to establish the credentials of Dharmapala as the father of modern Lanka and also as a central figure in the imagination of the nation. © 2026 selection and editorial matter, Dev Nath Pathak and Sanjeev Kumar H.M; individual chapters, the contributors.
Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy: Ideas on Cultural and Political Consciousness
(Taylor and Francis, 2025) Priyanka Jha
There is a large corpus of work that can be credited to Ananda K. Coomaraswamy. In his lifetime, he wrote extensively on a variety of issues; hence, the difficulty in typifying and establishing him in a certain kind of scholarship. He is regarded as an art historian by scholars writing on art and the history of art, but it would be a partial and incorrect assessment of his scholarship to judge him solely as an art historian. Thus, there is a need to take him out of this dominant understanding built around him and treat him as a scholar who proposed a body of ideas for the reconstitution of public life. © 2026 selection and editorial matter, Dev Nath Pathak and Sanjeev Kumar H.M; individual chapters, the contributors.
Cultural Tangibles and Intangibles and Disaster Challenges: Narratives from Varanasi
(Springer Nature, 2023) Priyanka Jha; Sukhreet Bajwa
The chapter places the need for integration of conservation of heritage with disaster risk reduction with narratives from the city of Varanasi. Varanasi is one of the ancient cities which have seen changes in the landscapes as well as in culture. The presence of the river Ganges gives it important resources as well as makes it prone to hydrological hazards. The chapter captures the rapid urbanization and the current state of city level services which adds to the vulnerability of the population to the impending hazards. The policies on disaster risk reduction as well as on heritage conservation and management exist but not implemented in an integrated way which leads to gaps in providing coverage from risks. Finally, the chapter dwells into the varied solutions offered by the authors as a way forward to truly build Varanasi as a future-oriented and resilient- smart-heritage city. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023.
Introduction: Talking About Global Inequality
(Springer International Publishing, 2023) Christian Olaf Christiansen; Sofía Mercader; Mélanie Lindbjerg Machado-Guichon; Oliver Bugge Hunt; Priyanka Jha
This chapter introduces the book of interview essays Talking About Global Inequality. It provides an overview of contemporary debates on global inequality and their prominence in both academia and the public sphere. It also presents the ideas that motivated this collection of interview essays, written by nineteen scholars and intellectuals from around the world. One of these motivations is the need to decolonize knowledge, and therefore the book seeks to gather myriad voices of people working on global inequality, not only within traditional centres of Western academia, but also in the Global South. A second premise of the book is that people’s geographical location is a crucial factor in influencing their views and thoughts about the world, in other words, the importance of positionality. Therefore, the questions in these interview essays place particular attention to the personal and geographical dimension of the work of the contributing intellectuals. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023.
Microbial Volatiles (mVOCs) Induce Tomato Plant Growth and Disease Resistance Against Wilt Pathogen Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. lycopersici
(Springer, 2024) Prachi Singh; Jyoti Singh; Shatrupa Ray; Anukool Vaishnav; Priyanka Jha; Rakesh Kumar Singh; Harikesh Bahadur Singh
Microbial volatile organic compounds (mVOCs) and its potentiality in plant growth and development is still an unexplored area. The in vitro study on bipartite plate showed inhibition of Fusarium oxysporum f.sp lycopersici (FOL) by volatiles of Trichoderma asperellum BHU P1 and Ochrobactrum sp. BHU-PB1 over control. The seed germination and seedling growth was recorded maximum in plant exposed to VOCs of Ochrobactrum sp. in both magenta box (in vitro) and pot (in vivo) experiment. The growth parameters as seed germination, shoot length, root length, fresh weight, dry weight, number of lateral roots and number of leaflets was compared to be higher in microbial volatile metabolites treated plants as compared to control. Disease incidence in T. asperellum and Ochrobactrum sp. volatile treated tomato plants were 43.66% and 41.33%, respectively at 20 days post inoculation (dpi) whereas untreated control showed disease incidence up to 79.16%. GC–MS analysis of volatile metabolite of T. asperellum BHU P1 detected 42 compounds and Ochrobactrum sp. BHU-PB1 detected 50 compounds over PDB and NB control. HPLC analysis of volatile treated tomato leaves showed enhanced concentration of gallic acid, t-chlorogenic acid, rutin, p-caumeric acid, cinnamic acid, ferulic acid, capsacin, salicylic acid, syringic acid and quercetin over control at 0, 48 and 72 h of FOL challenge. Above observations led to the conclusion that tomato roots which perceived the volatiles of Ochrobactrum sp. BHU-PB1 showed better plant growth promotion and enhanced plant defense, revealed by higher phenolic compound production followed by T. asperellum BHU P1 volatile treated plant. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2023.
Organic intellectuals from modern India: B. R. Ambedkar and R. M. Lohia on inequality, intersectionality, and justice
(Routledge, 2024) Priyanka Jha; Christian Olaf Christiansen
This article revisits the intellectual history of inequality in the thinking of Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) and Dr Ram Manohar Lohia (1910–1967). Both were pivotal figures in the intellectual history of inequality in colonial and postcolonial India. Yet little work has been done to systematically juxtapose the two and their thinking on inequality. This article offers a first comparison, arguing that their ideas on inequality can be seen as the emergence of a unique, Indian version of what, in this article, we term “organic intersectionality.” We build this argument on four claims. First, both were organic intellectuals whose thinking was molded in the marginalized groups from which they arose, but whose ideas developed in unique and organic ways. Second, both had a unique eye to the intersectional and holistic character of Indian inequality, cutting across caste, class, race, and gender. Third, their thinking grew from a deep engagement with religion, which they saw as both legitimizing and delegitimizing inequality. Fourth, both these figures exemplify postcolonial hybridity and thus stand in contrast both to a diffusionist approach whereby ideas are simply diffused from the West to the East, and to a nationalized, self-contained, or decolonial history of ideas. © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Organic intellectuals from modern India: B. R. Ambedkar and R. M. Lohia on inequality, intersectionality, and justice
(Routledge, 2025) Priyanka Jha; Christian Olaf Christiansen
This article revisits the intellectual history of inequality in the thinking of Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) and Dr Ram Manohar Lohia (1910–1967). Both were pivotal figures in the intellectual history of inequality in colonial and postcolonial India. Yet little work has been done to systematically juxtapose the two and their thinking on inequality. This article offers a first comparison, arguing that their ideas on inequality can be seen as the emergence of a unique, Indian version of what, in this article, we term “organic intersectionality.” We build this argument on four claims. First, both were organic intellectuals whose thinking was molded in the marginalized groups from which they arose, but whose ideas developed in unique and organic ways. Second, both had a unique eye to the intersectional and holistic character of Indian inequality, cutting across caste, class, race, and gender. Third, their thinking grew from a deep engagement with religion, which they saw as both legitimizing and delegitimizing inequality. Fourth, both these figures exemplify postcolonial hybridity and thus stand in contrast both to a diffusionist approach whereby ideas are simply diffused from the West to the East, and to a nationalized, self-contained, or decolonial history of ideas. © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Preface
(Springer International Publishing, 2023) Christian Olaf Christiansen; Mélanie Lindbjerg Machado-Guichon; Sofía Mercader; Oliver Bugge Hunt; Priyanka Jha
[No abstract available]
Pursuits of global gendered intellectual history: Stories from India
(De Gruyter, 2023) Priyanka Jha
The key argument that this paper poses is the need for intellectual history to be gendered as well as inclusive in its orientation, bringing voices from the post-colonial and non-Western worlds. Building from the narratives and experiences of India, and the multiple feminist interventions and contributions in sites of knowledge and thinking, this paper argues for the urgency of making global gendered intellectual history of ideas inclusive and diverse. It emphasizes the urgency of a shift towards it invoking the deep diversities in the world of women thinking, drawing from multiple experiences resulting from distinct contexts, locations and temporalities. This paper also makes a case for identifying the common and similar ideas that women thinkers share, but at the same time, the necessity for a context-specific focus on positionalities that are crucial in shaping those ideas. © 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston. All rights reserved.
Resurrecting India’s Struggle for Independence: Pioneering Role of Babu Jagat Singh
(ACCB Publishing, 2025) Rana P.B. Singh; Priyanka Jha
Based on a five-year project (2019-2023) that investigated colonial correspondences and records held in various archives, a research document has been prepared to re-investigate the colonial history of the Banaras estate. Pradeep Narayan Singh, the representative of the Royal Family, has patronised this project through a significant grant and infrastructure. Over time, the report has been published as a research monograph, considering the role and activities of ‘Babu’ Jagat Singh, a member of the Royal Family of Banaras, who in the 18th Century led the group of revolutionaries and also led the first exploration of the Buddhist site of Sarnath; however, erroneously he was projected as a destroyer. This research has dispelled the earlier misconceptions about him, as supplemented by authentic archival sources. © 2025 Singh & Jha. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Talking About Global Inequality: Personal Experiences and Historical Perspectives
(Springer International Publishing, 2023) Christian Olaf Christiansen; Mélanie Lindbjerg Machado-Guichon; Sofía Mercader; Oliver Bugge Hunt; Priyanka Jha
Comprising a collection of interview essays with nineteen public intellectuals and scholars from around the world, this book reflects on some of the most pressing questions of our age: what is global inequality; what causes it; and how should we deal with it? Leading figures within the fields of History, Sociology, Economics, Anthropology and Postcolonial Studies, shed light on how their personal backgrounds, places of work, and hometowns have shaped their views on global inequality. We learn about the causes of global inequality, the historical factors that have shaped the world into an unequal place, and the challenges that humanity is confronted with in the face of the widening gap between the poor and the rich. Bringing together voices from the Global North and South, this book helps us to think more broadly about inequality and deepens our understanding of how this long-lasting phenomenon is, and has been, experienced across the globe. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023.
Thinking Inequality Through Socialism in Modern India (1920–1980): Narayan, Lohia and Chattopadhyay
(Taylor and Francis, 2024) Priyanka Jha
Socialism in India, as an important intellectual tradition, has been a central interlocutor in the more significant debates on normative concerns, especially on inequality. Its presence was crucial during the nationalist struggle for independence and in post-colonial formative years, in the debates on inequalities and nature of development (1930–1970s). This article engages with a specific strand of Socialism (Oppositional Socialism), in the writings and works of Dr Jayaprakash Narayan, Dr Ram Manohar Lohia and Kamla Devi Chattopadhyaya and their position on inequality in India and the world. In ways tracing solutions from within, through tropes of indigenity, via concepts and frameworks, and providing alternative visions for resolution of inequality in India and globally. Narayan’s invocation of Sarvodaya, Lohia’s intersectional reading through the lens of caste, class and gender along with Chattopadhaya’s decentralised and gendered framework aids in understanding the rationale for choosing Democratic Socialism as a significant interlocutor in the resolution of inequality for post-colonial societies. © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.