Bhavya Chauhan

I am a PhD student in the field of South Asian history, with a research focus on peasant politics and caste in 20th-century India. My work will analyze the discourse on caste and the agrarian political economy and strategies for alliance building and mobilization in peasant movements. My research will particularly focus on the evolving political categories of the kisan (farmer) and the khet mazdoor (agrarian laborer) while foregrounding the changing agrarian caste relations.

Before joining Stanford, my MA thesis at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen analyzed the archive of Baba Ramchandra, a prominent peasant leader in late colonial Awadh. I studied his writings on caste and political organization, the relation between the state and the political economy, the Indian National Congress, and village reforms.