Soheb Niazi is a historian specializing in the social and economic history of modern India. His research focuses on non-elite (non-ashrāf) Muslim actors in South Asia. He has been a Doctoral Fellow at the Berlin Graduate School of Muslim Cultures and Societies and was awarded his Ph.D. from the Department of History and Culture Studies at the Freie Universität, Berlin. Following his doctoral studies, he was a fellow at the International Institute of Asian Studies in Leiden. Currently, he is a Gerda Henkel Postdoctoral Fellow affiliated with the Global History Division at the Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut, Freie University, Berlin. He is also a co-editor of the project Tazkira-e Jamia: Retrieving Past Lives from Jamia, a collaborative initiative of the Max Weber Forum for South Asian Studies and the Centre de Sciences Humaines in New Delhi.
Areas of Research Interest
- South Asian Islam
- Social and economic history
- Caste
- History of science and technology
- Urdu studies
Ongoing Research Project
Hide Hierarchies: A global history of the entangled networks of meat, tanning and leather industries (1860-1960)
This research project addresses the limited historical understanding of the global meat industry’s evolution in the Global South. Despite the growing concerns over ecological implications and inhumane conditions in contemporary livestock farming, there remains a lack of comprehensive knowledge about the industry’s historical development. Urgent comprehension of the historical development of the global meat industry is essential to understand the processes driving the ongoing and substantial growth of global animal flesh production for human consumption, despite widespread criticism.
The project focuses specifically on the meat industry, and its allied industries of hides/skins and leather in colonial India. Despite boasting one of the largest livestock populations, the meat industry in India did not significantly expand during the colonial period. Conversely, the allied industries underwent rapid commercialization driven by British military requirements. By studying the entanglements of these industries within a globalising economy, this project aims to contribute to a global history of meat, hides/skins and leather that details the transformation or restructuring of skills, status and social hierarchies accompanying India’s transition to a modern industrialized system under colonial governance.
The project’s primary objective is to trace the development and evolution of the “endogamous guilds” (Roy, 2010) of artisans and merchants involved in these industries. In doing so, it will contribute to the field of modern South Asian history by intervening in debates on the de-industrialization of the Indian economy, specifically the commercialization of artisanal industries in the colonial period (Roy, 1999). Moreover, by developing micro-histories of diverse social actors belonging to endogamous guilds linked to these industries, the project offers a comprehensive portrayal of the social dynamics and hierarchical relations within these industries.
Publications
Levesque, Julien and Niazi, Soheb. 2023. ‘Caste politics, minority representation, and social mobility: the associational life of Muslim caste in India’, Contemporary South Asia, 31(3): 413–425. https://doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2023.2240258
Niazi, Soheb. 2022. ‘Local History in the Making: Tārīkh Nigārī at Qasbah Amroha (1878-1934)’, Urdu Studies, 2(1): 25-45.
Niazi, Soheb. 2022. Review of the book Making a Muslim: Reading Publics and Contesting Identities in Nineteenth-Century North India by S. Akbar Zaidi, Economic and Political Weekly, 57(22).
Niazi, Soheb. 2021. Review of the book Defending Muhammad in Modernity by Sherali Tareen, The Book Review, pp. 34-36.
Niazi. Soheb. 2020. ‘Sayyids and Social Stratification of Muslims in Colonial India: Genealogy and Narration of the Past in Amroha’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 30(3). https://doi.org/10.1017/S1356186320000358
Niazi. Soheb. 2020. Review of the book The Cambridge Companion to Sayyid Ahmad Khan by Yasmin Saikia and M. Raisur Rahman (eds.), Economic and Political Weekly, 55(11).