He was born in a North Indian town and grew up in New Delhi and completed his schooling and undergraduate studies there. He joined (New Delhi) for a M. A. in Modern and Contemporary History. He also pursued a two-year M. Philosophy programme at JNU. After that he worked with Tata Consultancy Services (Tata Consultancy Services) in New Delhi for three years as an Editor and Corporate Communications professional, before going to the University of Cambridge to pursue his Phd.
He is Associate Professor in the South Asian Studies Programme at the National University of Singapore. He was the Head of the South Asian Studies Programme from 2006 to 2010. His research interests focus upon post-colonial South Asian history.
He has done extensive studies on the political history of Uttar Pradesh.
He has proposed the idea of dividing Uttar Pradesh into three different regions to make it governable." "With a deeply fragmented polity and a lack of cohesiveness in its political life, the time has come for Uttar Pradesh to rethink its status as a "heartland". He argues that a beginning to this effect has been made with the creation of Uttaranchal, carved out of the hilly region of Uttar Pradesh, in November 2000.
"However, the process has to go much further." He is currently working on the politics of states reorganization in post-colonial India. Prior to joining the South Asian Studies Programme, of which he has been a member since its inception in June 1999, he was an Assistant Professor at the School of Arts in Nanyang Technological University.
Servants, Not Masters’: Colonial Officials, Congress “Raj” and the Question of Loyalty in Northern India, 1937-1939’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 2006.
In Aid of Civil Power”: The Colonial Army in Northern India, c. 1919-1942’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Volume 32, Number. 1, January 2004 Frank Cass Publishers, London, United Kingdom. Constructing the “Heartland”: Uttar Pradesh in India’s Body-Politic’, South Asia, Journal of South Asian Studies, New Series Volume
XXV, Number.
2, August 2002, Special Issue, pp. 153–182. Taylor & Francis Publishers, London, United Kingdom. India"s New Mantra: The Internet’, Current History, A Journal of Contemporary World Affairs, 100, 645 (April 2001): 162-169.
He is also the board member of Singapore"s first Indian Heritage Center scheduled to be open in 2012.
