Migrations in Medieval and Early Colonial India

Vijaya Ramaswamy is Professor of Ancient Indian History and Chairperson, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. She teaches Indian economic history, religion and society, and is also interested in Tamil folklore and women’s studies. She is the author of Textiles and Weavers in Medieval South India (1985); Divinity and Deviance: Women in Virasaivism (1996); Walking Naked: Women, Society, Spirituality in South India (1997); The Historical Dictionary of the Tamils (2007); Textiles and Weavers in South India (2007); TheA to Z of the Tamils (2010); and The Song of the Loom (2013). Her edited books include Re-searching Indian Women (2003) and Devotion and Dissent in Indian History (2014). She has also co-edited (with Yogesh Sharma) Biography as History: Indian Perspectives (2009). ?

‘Indian migration history so far has been dominated by studies about indentured labourers going overseas, and the diaspora. Unlike in other parts of the world, where this field is much more extensive, this book makes a fresh start by pre- and early-colonial peasant, artisan, and merchant migrations taking centrestage.’Jan Lucassen, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

• Foreword. Preface. Acknowledgements. Introduction Part I Peasant Migrations Migration and Mobility: The Collective Memory of Kongu Vellalar Peasantry of South India 2.?Social Mobility and Migration among the Jats of Medieval India 3. Rethinking Mobility: The Story of the Gujars Part II Artisanal and Merchant Migrations 4. Pirla Panduga: Muharram Practices of the Deccan Weavers, Their Migrations, Songs and Memories 5.?Migrations of the Weaver Communities in Medieval Peninsular India, 13th–18th Centuries 6. From Marwar to Malwa and Back: Artisanal Mobility and Circulation during the Eighteenth Century 7. Many Madanpuras: Memories and Histories of Migrant Weavers of Northern India during 19th–20th Centuries 8. Circulation of People and Patterns of Maritime Migrations in the Indian Ocean during the Pre-modern Period 9. Meos in the process of Peasantisation and Islamisation in Medieval Period