MK

Mukesh Kumar

University of Zurich, Ruprecht Karls Universität Heidelberg, ETH Zurich

ORCID iD 0000-0003-0908-5955
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About

Mukesh Kumar is an SNSF Senior Fellow at the University of Zurich. He has been an ETH postdoctoral fellow (2021-​23) at the chair for the history of the modern world. Prior moving to Zürich, he was an Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellow (2019-​21) in the Department of Anthropology at the South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University. He obtained his PhD degree from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Australia in 2019, and BA, MA and M.Phil degrees from Delhi University between 2007 and 2014. His research interests stand at the intersection of history and anthropology and include cultural and religious encounters between Islam, Hinduism and Christianity. He has published research articles in Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Oxford Journal of Law and Religion, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Contemporary South Asia (Routledge), History and Anthropology (Routledge), and Economic and Political Weekly among many others. His first book, Between Muslim Pīr and Hindu Saint has been published by Cambridge University Press in 2024 which deals with the changing forms of religious cultures and the issue of concealment and passive resistance around the shared religious shrines of a north Indian bhakti devotional figure called Laldas. He has also co-edited a volume on the Basel Mission in India with Leiden University Press (2026) and is currently writing two books on caste, religion and social mobility and urban religion by focusing on sree Narayana Guru and Sant Rampal, respectively.

Employment

  • University of Zurich SNSF Senior Fellow
    2024 - 2028
  • ETH Zurich ETH Postdoctoral Fellow
    2021 - 2023
  • QMUL Project Fellow
    2019 - 2019
  • ARSD College, University of Delhi Assistant Professor
    2013 - 2015
  • University of Zurich
  • Ruprecht Karls Universität Heidelberg Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow

Education

Education history is unavailable.

Projects & Funding

  • Caste, Religion, and Social Mobility in India Swiss National Science Foundation
    2024 - 2028
  • Between Muslim Pir and Hindu Saint: Laldas, Shared Shrines, and Religious Changes in a North Indian Devotional Culture Swiss National Science Foundation
    2024 - 2024
  • The Basel Mission in India: Social, Economic, and Religious Entanglements with the Swiss-German World Swiss National Science Foundation
    2023 - 2023
  • Between Piety, Politics and Empowerment: Religious, Social and Economic Transformations among Dalit Converts of the Basel Mission in India (c. 1835-​2020) ETH Zurich
    2021 - 2023
  • In Search of an Identity: Religious Conversion and Community Formation among Muslim Jogis Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung
    2019 - 2021
  • Mobility Grant for PhD The Research Council of Norway
    2017 - 2017
  • PhD Thesis The Research Council of Norway
  • Caste, Religion and Social Mobility among a Marginalised Community (Billava) in South India (Declined) British Academy
  • UTS International Research (IRS) scholarship UTS
  • UTS Fieldwork Grant UTS
  • Conversion to Commerce: An Entangled History of the Basel Mission between Switzerland, Germany, and South India Swiss National Science Foundation

Publications (23)