Shivaji Mukherjee

Biography

I am an Assistant Professor in Political Science, at the University of Toronto, Mississauga, and also part of the Graduate Faculty at the University of Toronto, St. George. I am also a Faculty Associate at the Center for South Asian Studies, Asian Institute, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto.

I work on political violence and conflict in India, and do research on insurgencies in South Asia, particularly focusing on Maoist insurgency in India. I have several articles on this topic and published a book on Colonial Institutions and Civil War: Indirect Rule and Maoist Insurgency in India  (Cambridge University Press, 2021). I also have an interest in state formation, legacies of colonial institutions, and other types of political violence in South Asia like Hindu Muslim violence and Kashmir insurgency.

I did my PhD in political science at Yale University. My dissertation was on the Maoist insurgency in India, and uses data gathered during field work, archival data and quantitative analysis of sub national datasets to demonstrate that different forms of British colonial institutions of indirect rule created conditions of weak state capacity and ethnic inequality which facilitated post colonial Maoist insurgency. I build on this in my book manuscript, which is forthcoming at CUP, and show that indirect rule created conditions for insurgency in other cases in Pakistan and Burma.

SELECTED publications

Book

Colonial Institutions and Civil War: Indirect Rule and Maoist Insurgency in India. Cambridge University Press, Studies in Contentious Politics Series, May 16, 2021.

PUBLICATIONS IN JOURNALS / WORKING PAPER SERIES

“Colonial Origins of Sons of the Soil Insurgency: Maoist Rebellion in Central India.” Asian Security, April 2021.

“Colonial Legacies and Insurgency in India: Developing an instrument for colonial choice of indirect rule based on historical wars”, CLIO: Newsletter of Politics and History Section, APSA, Volume 29, issue 1 (Winter 2019-2020).

“Pre-Colonial Warfare and Long-Run Development in India” (co-authored with Dincecco, Fenske, Menon); Forthcoming in The Economic Journal, 2021.

“Colonial Origins of Maoist Insurgency in India: Historical Indirect Rule Institutions and Civil War.” Journal of Conflict Resolution, Volume 62, Issue 10, October 2018.

“Historical Legacies of Colonial Indirect Rule: Princely States and Maoist insurgency in Central India.” World Development, 2018, 111 (113-129).

“Insurgencies in India – Origins and Causes”, in Sumit Ganguly, Manjeet Pardesi, Nicolas Blarel (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of India’s National Security. 2018.

“Insurgency and counter insurgency in South Asia”, in Sumit Ganguly, Joseph Liow and Andrew Scobell (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Asian Security Studies, 2nd edition. October 2017.

“Why are the Longest Insurgencies Low Violence? Politician Motivations, Sons of the Soil and Civil War Duration”. Civil Wars, Volume 16, Issue 2, 2014.

 “Colonial Origins of Maoist Insurgency in India: Long Term Effects of Indirect Rule—Chapter 5: Econometric analysis of spatial variation in Maoist insurgency in India”, CASI Working Paper Series No. 13-01, January 2013.