Arupjyoti Saikia 

Arupjyoti Saikia 

Professor 
Education: PhD
History
arupjyoti@iitg.ac.in
+91 361 2582564
Room No: 207
Personal Website

Research Interests: Economic, Environmental and Political History of Modern Assam

Journal Publications


1. Arupjyoti Saikia, "Earthquakes and the environmental transformation of a floodplain landscape: The Brahmaputra Valley and the earthquakes of 1897 and 1950", Environment and History, vol.26, Issue no.1, pp.51-77 [2020], 10.3197/096734019X15755402985550

2. Arupjyoti Saikia, "Nature and Assam's present", Seminar, vol.690, pp.20-24 [2017]

3. Arupjyoti Saikia, "Borders, Commodities and Citizens across Mud and River: Assam, 1947-1950", Studies in History, Sage, vol.32, Issue no.1, pp.72-96 [2016]

4. Arupjyoti Saikia, "Jute in the Brahmaputra valley: The making of flood control in 20th century Assam", Modern Asian Studies, Cambridge University Press, vol.49, Issue no.5, pp.1405-1441 [2015]

Book Chapter


1. Arupjyoti Saikia, "An Ever Changing Present: Assam and Her Fluvial Landscapes" , Nature Contested: Ecology, Society, and Environment in Contemporary India , Orient BlackSwan , pp.118-144 [2026]

2. Arupjyoti Saikia, "Monsoon Geographies, Assam, and Making of an Eco-Region" , Environmental Studies from India Engaging with the Planetary Ecological Crisis , Oxford University Press , [2025]

3. Arupjyoti Saikia, "Hardwoods and the British Empire in Assam: Sal and Teak in the Age of Colonialism, 1850s–1940s" , Capital and Ecology: Developmentalism, Subjectivity and the Alternative Life-Worlds , Routledge , [2023]

4. Arupjyoti Saikia, "Assam: The Long View" , The Indians: Histories of Civilization , Aleph Book Company , [2023]

5. Arupjyoti Saikia, "The Brahmaputra" , The Routledge Companion to Northeast India , Routledge , [2022]

6. Arupjyoti Saikia, "Flows and Fairs: The Eastern Himalayas and the British Empire" , Flows and Frictions in Trans-Himalayan Spaces: Histories of Networking and Border Crossing , Amsterdam University Press , [2022] https://www.aup.nl/en/book/9789463724371/flows-and-frictions-in-trans-himalayan-spaces

7. Arupjyoti Saikia, "Empire's Nature in the Garo Hills: A Micro History of India's Environmental Movements" , A Functioning Anarchy? Essays for Ramachandra Guha , Penguin Random House , [2021]

8. Arupjyoti Saikia, "Rhinoceros in Kaziranga National Park: Nature and politics in modern Assam" , Reframing the Environment Resources, Risk and Resistance in Neoliberal India , Routledge India , [2020]

9. Arupjyoti Saikia, "Landscape, Culture, and Belonging: Writing the History of Northeast India" , Geographical Exploration and Historical Investigation: John Peter Wade in Assam , Cambridge University Press , pp.110-130, [2019]

10. Arupjyoti Saikia, "Vernacular for the Nation : Hemchandra Goswami's Typical Selections from Assamese Literature" , On Modern Indian Sensibilities: Culture, Politics, History , Routledge , pp.179-197, [2018]

11. Arupjyoti Saikia, "“Making Room Inside Forests: Grazing and Agrarian Conflicts in the Brahmaputra valley of Colonial Assam”" , Shifting Ground: People, Animals, and Mobility in India's Environmental History , Oxford University Press , [2014]

12. Arupjyoti Saikia, "“Coal in Colonial Assam: the Dynamics of Exploration, Trade and Environmental Consequences”" , The Coal Nation: Histories, Cultures and Ecologies of Coal in India , Ashgate, London , [2014]

Books


1. Arupjyoti Saikia & Mahesh Rangarajan, "India's Forests: Revisiting Nature and History", Penguin Random House [2026], https://www.penguin.co.in/book/indias-forests/

2. Arupjyoti Saikia, "The Quest for Modern Assam: A History, 1942-2000", Penguin Random House [2023], https://www.penguin.co.in/book/the-quest-for-modern-assam-a-history/

3. Arupjyoti Saikia, "The Unquiet River: A Biography of the Brahmaputra", Oxford University Press [2019], https://india.oup.com/product/the-unquiet-river-9780199468119

4. Arupjyoti Saikia, A Century of Protests: Peasant Politics in Assam Since 1900, Routledge [2014], https://www.routledge.com/A-Century-of-Protests-Peasant-Politics-in-Assam-Since-1900/Saikia/p/book/9781138660274

5. Arupjyoti Saikia, "A Forests and Ecological History of Assam, 1826-2000", Oxford University Press [2011]

6. Arupjyoti Saikia, "Jungles, Reserves, Wildlife: A History of Forests in Assam", Wildlife Areas Development and Welfare Trust, Assam [2005]

7. Arupjyoti Saikia, "Orunodoi: collected essays between the period 1855–1968", Krantikal, Nagaon [2002]

No Project Available!

Sl.No Name Thesis Title PhD Status
1 Ajay Salunkhe Displaying India: Museums, Exhibitions, and Politics in Modern India APR3
2 Biswajit Sarmah Park, People and Politics: An Environmental History of the Kaziranga National Park
3 Namrata Borkotoky Brewing Trouble or Transforming Nature? Making of Tea Plantations’ Environments in Assam, 1830s-1930s Completed
4 Prarthana Saikia Citizenship, Nationality and Assam: A Political History Since 1947 Completed
5 Gitashree Tamuly Lakshminath Bezbaroa and His Times: Language, Literature and Modernity in Colonial Assam Completed
6 Ditte Moni Baruah Polity and Petroleum Making of an Oil Industry in Assam, 1825-1980
7 Kawal Deep Kour History of Intoxication: Opium in Assam, 1800-1959
8 N.s. Abhilasha Empire, Epidemics, and Health in Assam, 1860-1940 Completed
9 Arka Ghatak Making of Land Reforms: Agrarian Politics in West Bengal, 1947-67 APR1
10 Hrishita Rajbangshi
11 Upasana Hazarika Narrativising the Past: A Cultural and Intellectual History of the Buranjis in Assam, 1600-1844 CE APR2
12 Priyanka Sarma Writing and Poetics in the Vernacular: Exploring Assamese Literary Practices (c. 14th-18th century AD) APR1
13 Rima Kalita Imagining Nature: A Cultural History of Assam’s Environment, (1500 CE to 1800 CE) APR4
14 Neellohit Roy
15 Swagata Mukhopadhyay Discovery of Ancient Kamrup: Quest for Past in Colonial Assam Completed
16 Himalaya Bora Land, Property and Urban Transformation: A History of Guwahati, 1820s-1960s Submission
Sl.No Name Year Dissertation Title
1 Pratim Das 2024 Land, Rivers and Agriculture : Making of the Teesta Barrage in North Bengal
2 SHIVANGI SAHA 2024 EXPLORING BENGAL'S ECONOMIC DYNAMICS IN POST-COLONIAL INDIA: A STUDY OF THE STATE'S INDUSTRY, MANAGING AGENCIES, AND LABOUR
3 Ayushi Chauhan 2020 Environment, Governance and Development: Making of Modern Delhi and the Changing Fate of Yamuna River
4 Himalaya Bora 2017 Agrarian world, market and colonial Darrang: Understanding market in colonial times
5 Suchiney Buhphang 2016 Trade and navigation on the Brahmaputra river during the Colonial period: 1873-1889
6 Madhab Bonia 2016 A study in Jonai sub-division under Dhemaji district: understanding flood and embankment in the Brahmaputra Valley
7 Namrata Borkotoky 2015 A history of tea plantations in Assam: 1947-70
8 Dhrubajyoti Nath 2013 The Land Question: Assam Legislative Assembly, 1951-61
9 Haren Saikia 2013 Emerging Dilemma of Forest Rights in Assam: A Study of Doyang and Tengani Area
10 Rinku Das 2013 When Fish Disappear! Ecological Fates of Fishing Communities in Floodplain of Brahmaputra Valley
11 Sajib Das 2013 Avifauna, Landscape and Ecological Transformation in Assam: An Exploration into two habitats

No Data Available!

Sl.No Name Year
No Data Available!
Sl.No Program Name Email Year Thesis/Project Title Affiliation

Awards and Achievements


Award Title : New India Foundation Fellowship
Awarded By : New India Foundation
2017-18 National
Award Title : Charles Wallace Visiting Fellowship
2017-18 International
Award Title : Srikanta Dutta Book Award
Awarded By : NMML, New Delhi
2016 National

Patents


No Data Available!

Sl.No Name of Faculty and co-researcher Title Application No Date of Award Year Status

Attended


Title: Gold washers, Fishermen, and Boatmen: Was there a pre-modern life of the Brahmaputra?

Name of Conference: Six Rivers in Historical Times: Nature-Human Interactions on Himalayan Rivers

Duke University, Durham, USA Feb 18, 2016 - Feb 18, 2016 International
Title: “Sal, Teak and a British Imperial Project: Redesigning an Ancient Landscape in India’s North East”

Name of Conference: The Wood Age in Asia Connection and Comparison in Forest History

Yale University, New Haven Sep 21, 2018 - Sep 23, 2018 International

Invited


Title: Elephants, Water and Environmental History of Modern Guwahati

Name of Conference: More-than-Human Guwahati: Reflections on Nonhuman Lives in the Indian Urban

Cotton University, Cotton University Nov 7, 2022 - Nov 8, 2022 No.of Partcipants: 50 International
Title: Colonial Oil Explorations and Assam’s Nature
: Some Preliminary Consideration

Name of Conference: Energy History and Environmental Sustainability

University of Chicago, New Delhi May 3, 2024 - May 3, 2024 No.of Partcipants: 50 International
Title: Trading Nature at Empire's Edge: Marwari Merchants in Colonial Northeast India [c.1820s-1920]

Name of Conference: Asian Borderlands: Cross-Border Exchange and Extraction in Modern History

University of Bern, University of Bern Sep 2, 2024 - Sep 3, 2024 No.of Partcipants: 50 International

Attended


Title: Unwilling Hosts: Partition and the Entangled Histories of Assam

Name of Invited Lecture: Borders in Modern Asia Seminar Series

Harvard University, Harvard, USA Feb 18, 2014 - Feb 18, 2014 International
Title: The Unruly Floodplains, the British Empire and an Environmental History of the Brahmaputra

Name of Invited Lecture: South Asian Studies Colloquium

Yale University, New Haven Sep 18, 2027 - Sep 18, 2027 International

Invited


Title: Where Rain Becomes History: How the Monsoon Carved Assam's Destiny?

Name of Invited Lecture: Keynote Lecture: Global Protection of Refugees and Climate - Induced Migrants

CRG, Kolkatat, Kolkata Feb 20, 2024 - Feb 21, 2024 No.of Partcipants: 100 International
Title: Power, Voice and the Buranjis: Rethinking Assamese Historical Thoughts

Name of Invited Lecture: Lila Gogoi Memorial Lecture

North Lakhimpur College, North Lakhimpur College May 24, 2024 - May 24, 2024 No.of Partcipants: 100 National
Title: Anxiety and Enigma: Last Days of the British Empire in Assam

Name of Invited Lecture: Anxiety and Enigma: Last Days of the British Empire in Assam

Dibrugarh University, Dibrugarh Mar 18, 2029 - Jul 19, 2030 National
Title: Paik to Raiyat: Patharughat, 1894

Name of Invited Lecture: Pandit Tirthanath Sarma Memorial Lecture

Pragjyotish College, Guwahati, Guwahati Sep 18, 2001 - Sep 18, 2001 National

Invited


Title: Flows and Fairs: The Eastern Himalayas and the British Empire

Name of Workshop: Reimagining Frontiers

University of Zurich, University of Zurich Sep 6, 2024 - Sep 6, 2024 No.of Partcipants: 30 International