PROFILE

Master (Economics) and MPhil (International Economics), JNU, New Delhi
PhD in Economic History, University of London

Gopalan Balachandran joined the Institute in 2000 from the Delhi School of Economics. His research engages South Asia and the Indian Ocean in a global frame and spans labour, capital, entrepreneurship and development. He is also interested in histories of colonialism and decolonisation, and their continuing significance for the present. Professor Balachandran’s current research focusses on cultures of commerce in the Indian Ocean and Atlantic worlds. He also supervises research on modern and contemporary South Asia as well as in selected areas in cultural and intellectual history, and welcomes students with interests in oceanic and maritime history.

EXPERTISE DETAILS

TEACHING, RESEARCH AND SUPERVISION

• South Asia / Indian Ocean
• Labour and migration
• Monetary / financial history
• Colonialism and decolonisation
• Oceanic / maritime history
• Cultural and intellectual history
• Historical methods / postcolonial approaches

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Books:

• John Bullion’s Empire: Britain’s Gold Problems and India between the Wars (London, 1996, 2013 and 2015)
• Globalizing Labour? Indian Seafarers and World Shipping, c. 1870-1945 (Delhi and Oxford, 2012)
• India and the World Economy, 1850-1950 (Delhi and Oxford, 2003/2006)
• The Reserve Bank of India, 1951-1967 (Delhi and Oxford, 1998)

Selected articles and chapters (2013 onwards):

• ‘Subaltern Cosmopolitanism, Racial Governance, and Multiculturalism: Britain, c. 1900-1945’, Social History39: 4 (2014), 528-46.
• ‘Legacies beyond Empire: Reflections on Doing International History from Geneva’, Swiss Journal of History64: 2 (2014), 239-63.
• ‘Atlantic Paradigms and Aberrant Histories’, Atlantic Studies: Global Currents 11: 1 (2014), 47-63.
• Roundtable on Globalizing Labour? Indian Seafarers and World Shipping, c. 1870-1945, International Journal of Maritime History 25: 1 (2013), 275-321.

ACTIVITIES

• Managing Editor, Indian Economic and Social History Review