Teaching
Courses
Education
- B.A. (Hons.) History, St Stephen’s College, University of Delhi
- B.A. (Hons.) History and Politics, St. Edmund Hall, University of Oxford
- Master’s in Modern South Asian Studies, St. Anthony’s College, University of Oxford
- D.Phil. in History, St. Anthony’s College, University of Oxford
Profile
Vanya Vaidehi Bhargav is an intellectual historian of modern South Asia. She is interested in nationalism and secularism, and religious and political thought in general. She was a post-doctoral research fellow at the “Multiple Secularities“ Research Group, University of Leipzig, Germany, and ICAS: M.P., New Delhi, India. Vanya has also taught modern South Asian history to undergraduates at Oxford.
Vanya’s research has been published the Journal of Asian Studies, Global Intellectual History, Studies in Indian Politics and Religions. Committed to making history accessible without compromising on disciplinary rigour, her first book, “Being Hindu, Being Indian: Lala Lajpat Rai’s Ideas of Nationhood”, was published with Penguin Random House India in February 2024. Based on her doctoral research, the book examines the nationalist thought of Lala Lajpat Rai, and highlights the internal differentiation within ‘Hindu nationalism’. It also covers the themes of religion, majoritarianism, secularism and caste. Vanya’s book has been longlisted for the 2024 Crossword Book Award (Non-fiction) and 2024 Literature Live Best First Book Award (Non-fiction).
Vanya has written op-eds in The Indian Express, The Hindu, The Wire and The Times of India, and tweets at @vanyavaidehi. In her free time, she enjoys reading about the history and politics of India, and global/world histories. She is keen to understand democracy, authoritarian-populism, political violence, prejudice, religion, caste and identities at large.
Research Interests
- Ideas and ideologies
- Modern India
- Nationalism
- Secularism
- Religious and political thought
Publications
- 2024 Being Hindu, Being Indian: Lala Lajpat Rai’s Ideas of Nationhood, Penguin Random House, India
- 2025 ‘Arya Samaj’. In Oxford Bibliographies in Hinduism. Ed. Tracy Coleman. New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming
- 2023 ‘The Hinduism and Hindu Nationalism of Lala Lajpat Rai’, Special Issue on ‘Hinduism and Hindu Nationalism’, Religions, Volume 14, Issue 6
- 2023 ‘From Theology to Culture: Secularisation in Lajpat Rai’s Hindu nationalism, 1880s-1915’, Interdisciplinary Journal for South Asia Research, Number 7, 22 February 2023, pp. 91-127
- 2022 ‘A Hindu Champion of Pan-Islamism: Lajpat Rai and the Khilafat Movement’, Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 81, Issue 4, pp. 1-17
- 2021 ‘Letters to Sir Syed: Lajpat Rai’s response to the Muslim refusal of Minority-hood’, Global Intellectual History, published online: 6 July
- 2018 ‘Lala Lajpat Rai’s Ideas on Caste: Conservative or Radical?’, Studies in Indian Politics, Vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 15-26.
- 2023 Book Review, Neeti Nair’s Hurt Sentiments: Secularism and Belonging in South Asia, H-SOZ-KOLT, Humboldt University
- 2022 Working Paper, ‘Hindu Politics in Service of Secularism’, Working Paper Series of the Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences, ‘Multiple Secularities – Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities’, University of Leipzig
- 2021 Book Review, Arvind Elangovan’s Norms and Politics: Sir Benegal Narsing Rau in the Making of the Indian Constitution, 1935-50 for Law and Other Things, 6 July
- 2024 ‘Why We Should Not Put Leaders on Pedestals’, The Times of India, 28 September
- ‘The Left’s Centrist Conundrum’, The Hindu, 12 August
- 2023 ‘Nationalism, SRK-style’, The Indian Express, 15 September
- 2022 ‘We, as Indians, Must Not Shy Away from Nationalism’, TheWire.in, 3 March
- 2019 ‘Congress, Know Thyself’, The Indian Express, 24 June
- ‘The Inclusive Nationalist’, The Indian Express, 28 January