Arun Kumar - The Silent Rebellion: Labour, Caste, and Education in Colonial India’ by Cambridge University Press, 2026.

We would like to congratulate CeMIS alumnus, and Assistant Professor in British Imperial, Colonial, and Post-colonial History, University of Nottingham, Dr. Arun Kumar on the publication of his book ‘

Part of the ICAS:MP book series, the book launch will take place on 26 August 2026, in Seminar Halls 1,2,3, Kamaladevi Complex, India International Centre, New Delhi. Discussants: Professor Prabhu Mohapatra, (retired) University of Delhi Dr. Hem Borker, Jamia Millia Islamia Professor Aparna Vaidik, Ashoka University Panel Host: Manas Srivastava, Assistant Editor, The Indian Express Book Abstract: The Silent Rebellion tells a history of labour subjectivity formation at the site of education and the defiance of labouring subalterns who refused to see themselves solely as labouring bodies in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. On the one hand, the book examines how elite power—encompassing colonial officials, employers, and caste elites—attempted to integrate caste labour into their modern projects of industrial and technical education, thereby reproducing labouring conditions and subjectivities. It focuses on the hitherto neglected social histories of industrial, technical, factory, and night schools. On the other hand, the book reveals how labouring subalterns—artisans, factory labourers, and other service-providing workers—used education to challenge their portrayal as mere labouring bodies. Focusing on their desire for literary education, book learning, and their dream to become teachers, clerks, and poets—what the book articulates as the nonwork self of working lives—the book develops new analytical frameworks to write nonworking histories of working lives. See less