East India Company - Himal Southasian

Languages and labour on tea estates in South India and Sri Lanka

How colonial-era tea cultivation drove migration and shaped the languages and lived experiences of estate workers in Southasia

By Abhishek Avtans

/ 4 Jul 2025

Photo of three workers packing tea on a Ceylon estate supervised by a kanganie

The languages of tea-estate workers in Assam and Darjeeling

Labour migration to the tea gardens of colonial India fostered contact and convergence among diverse languages, prompting the rise of new linguas francas and the erosion of many mother tongues

By Abhishek Avtans

/ 20 Jan 2025

A vintage black and white photograph showing Assamese women plucking tea. Some of the women are wearing wide-brimmed hats, ot

Returning spoils of colonial conquest

Forgotten manuscripts in European archives may hold important keys to Northeast India’s past.

By Deepak Naorem

/ 7 Oct 2021

From frontier to boundary

What the Anglo-Gorkha War of 1814-16 can tell us about contemporary border issues.

By Bernardo Michael

/ 26 Aug 2020

Before empire

How should we read the Europeans who wrote about Southasia before colonial domination?

By Amanda Lanzillo

/ 21 May 2018

People of a Southasian past

A colonial experiment in ethnographic photography offers a rare glimpse into Southasia’s communities circa the 19th century.

By The Editors

/ 10 May 2017

Taking on a behemoth

The life story of Katharine Gerrard Cooke (1695-1745) evokes the struggles faced by the early English pioneers in India. (Part 2)

By N P Chekkutty

/ 22 Feb 2016

A massacre at the seaside

The life story of Katharine Gerrard Cooke (1695-1745) evokes the struggles faced by the early English pioneers in India. (Part 1)

By N P Chekkutty

/ 19 Feb 2016

Hell on Ascension

The story of Cochin’s Robinson Crusoe – found guilty of sodomy and banished to Ascension Island.

By N P Chekkutty

/ 19 Mar 2015

The life and letters of Elizabeth Draper

The world celebrated the tercentenary of writer Laurence Sterne (1713- 1768) in 2013. A tribute to the woman who inflamed his passions, Eliza, born in a remote south Indian village.

By N P Chekkutty

/ 13 Mar 2014

People of a Southasian past

A colonial experiment in ethnographic photography offers a rare glimpse into Southasia’s communities circa the 19th century

By The Editors

/ 21 Jan 2013

Diary of a disastrous campaign

A recently unearthed diary brings a fresh perspective to the lesser-known British foray into what we now call Nepal.

By Thomas Bell

/ 21 Dec 2012