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TIME Magazine

In the absence of sound history being taught in schools, some organizations are trying to provide an accurate portrayal in other ways. Eshan Sharma, founder of Karwaan, a student-led history collective, features free conversations with prominent historians, which are available online.

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About Us

Founded in 2019 by Eshan Sharma, the idea behind Karwaan is to promote the knowledge of history among young minds and the general public and inspire them to be inquisitive and committed to this field, as well as to make people understand the importance of heritage and history. To unshackle history from its inaccessibility roots and take it straight to the masses, we began our journey as an independent students’ collective at Delhi University. Karwaan is actively working towards breaking the stereotypes of academic disciplines and keeping the public engaged with critical conversations about our past, present, and future.

Sultanates, Empires, and the Boundaries of the Cosmopolitan in South Asia

Dr. Roy Fischel is a historian of early modern South Asia, exploring its rich and complex connections with the Muslim world, the Indian Ocean, and the broader global order. His academic journey began with a deep dive into Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, but his curiosity soon led him to the dynamic interplay of Islamicate societies and polities in South Asia. Over time, his research expanded to uncover the intricate relationships between Indic traditions and the increasingly dominant Muslim states and cultures of precolonial India. After earning his PhD in History and South Asian Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago in 2012, he joined the History Department at SOAS as a Lecturer in the History of South Asia. At the heart of Dr. Fischel’s work is a fascination with the formation of states, societies, and identities—and how they intertwined in early modern South Asia. His first monograph, Local States in an Imperial World: Identity, Society and Politics in the Early Modern Deccan (Edinburgh University Press, 2020), challenges the conventional idea that empire was the dominant model of statehood in this era. Focusing on the Deccan Sultanates of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, he reveals a different reality—one where power was built on negotiation rather than rigid hierarchy, where cultures merged rather than remained separate, and where identity was fluid rather than fixed. Drawing from a diverse array of sources in Persian, Marathi, Dakhani, Urdu, Hindi, and Arabic, he weaves together theories of empire, space, and vernacularization to examine the unique character of the Deccan. His research highlights the uneasy yet dynamic interactions between foreign and local, Muslim and Hindu, Persianate and vernacular traditions, arguing that the Deccan Sultanates were not mere mini-empires but self-aware political entities with their own distinct logic. Their story, he suggests, offers new ways of thinking about how power operated in the early modern world. His current research pushes these ideas even further, delving into the endurance of memory, local identities, and political languages across dynastic shifts and regime changes. He is particularly intrigued by the institution of kingship—not just as a political structure, but as a cultural and emotional phenomenon. How did aesthetics, symbols, and sentiment shape the way rulers presented themselves? What role did spectacle, poetry, and art play in crafting political authority? These are some of the questions that drive his ongoing work.

Sheikh Abdullah: The Caged Lion of Kashmir | Prof. Chitraleka Zutshi