Mutum Kenedy Singh

Education

• BA (Honours), History, University of Delhi (2013)
• MA (Honours), History, University of Delhi (2015)
• PhD (ongoing), Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Profile

Mutum Kenedy Singh is a PhD candidate at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, who joined NLSIU as a Visiting Faculty in 2024. Previously, he worked as a Research Assistant at the Institute for Conflict Management, New Delhi (a National Security Think tank) and as an Associate at Amazon.

Fellowships & Grants: Currently, he is a Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund (SYLFF) Doctoral fellow. He was awarded the (SYLFF) Doctoral fellow in April 2024 by the Nippon Foundation, Japan. Additionally, he was also awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Scholarship for Doctoral Studies by the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund, New Delhi, in March 2024. Mutum was selected as a recipient of the Sylff Research Grant (SRG) on 1st November 2024, for the FY2024 by the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research.

Research Work

He is currently working on a PhD project to analyse the history of the evolution of colonial military policy in the Northeast Frontier of the British Raj. The study attempts to trace the significant colonial practices and mechanisms devised to generate, recruit and mobilize military manpower resources in the imperial frontier. He is also interested in themes such as:

• Empire and Frontiers
• Global History
• Military history

Publications

Journals

• (Re) reading Chivu Stone Inscriptions: Colonial Archives, National Histories and Commemorations in North-eastern India. Indian Historical Review, 49(2), 249–272.

Editorials 

• Contested past and squabbled present: The Chandrakirti Memorial Park issue in Manipur.” Published in neScholar Magazine. September 2021, ISSN: 23500336.
• Absence of Historicite in Manipur. June, 2020.
• Tinderbox of Manipur: The Curious Case of ‘Economic Blockades’ in Manipur, and the Creation of the New Districts. December 26, 2016.
• The ‘Midnight Blitzkrieg’ at Manipur University. September 25, 2018.
• Flower of Discord: Is the Manipur violence an ecological conflict? Published in neScholar Magazine. Volume 6, Issue 1, 2024, 26–34, ISSN: 23500336.
• India: Corridor Insurgencies in Arunachal Pradesh. March 13, 2023.
• India: Entrenched Faultlines in Tripura. March 21, 2023.
• Assam: Sustained Peace. January 31, 2023.
• Manipur: Consolidating Gains. January 3, 2023.
• India: Exogenous Conflicts in Mizoram. April 18, 2023.
• Meghalaya: Simmering Conflicts. April 4, 2023.
• India: Stalemate Continues In Nagaland. February 21, 2023.

Conference Presentations

• Presented a paper titled “Empire Ecology and the Making of the Eastern Frontier of Bengal” as part of the workshop “Towards Inclusive Global Histories, challenges and Perspective,” which was jointly organized by Max Weber Forum for South Asian Studies and Shiv Nadar University and held at Shiv Nadar University on 6th April 2024.
• Presented a paper titled “The Multiple Afterlives of an Event: Ancestral Homelands, Identity Politics and History Writing in Northeast India” at the two-day National Seminar on Land, Development, and Identity Politics in North East India held on 23–24 July 2024 at Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi.
• Presented a paper titled “Soldiering the Frontier: The Empire’s Sepoys in the North East Frontier’’ at the Young Scholars International Conference Margins and Connections organized by Special Centre for the Study of North East Frontier, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, February 7–8, 2019.
• Presented a paper titled “An Imperial Mirage?” at the Annual Research Scholar’s Conference, Department of History, University of Delhi, March 2019.
• Presented a paper titled “Resisting the Sarkar Bahadur: The Great War’s Anti-Recruitment Resistance in the North Eastern Frontier of the British Raj” at the South Asia Global History Network, 2nd Annual Workshop, Writing Global History: Perspective from the Global South, organized by University of Delhi, Department of History on March 8, 2024.
• Presented a paper titled “Empire Ecology and the Making of the Eastern Frontier of Bengal” in a National Seminar (Webinar) on the theme, “Empire, Nature, People”, organized by the Special Centre for the Study of North East India (SCSNEI), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi from 17-18 October 2024.