Umar Khalid completed his PhD thesis on the history of the Adivasi tribes of the Singhbhum region of Jharkhand under extraordinary circumstances. He was facing sedition charges, had spent time in jail and had been rusticated from the university.

The thesis was submitted at Jawaharlal Nehru University’s Centre for Historical Studies in July 2018. Since then, it has garnered significant attention among scholars and historians. Ramachandra Guha has called it ‘one of the most accomplished doctoral dissertations by an Indian that I have read’, while Nandini Sundar described it as a ‘deeply insightful’ work by a ‘brilliant mind’.

In Fractured Communities, published in book form for the first time, Khalid combines archival rigour with analytical clarity to illuminate the history of Singhbhum’s tribal societies under British rule. The book is both a valuable work of history and a critique of histories written from positions of power, which tend to "flatten differences among and, more crucially, within communities.

At a time when public debates are increasingly shaped by simplistic versions of the past, the inquiry at the heart of Fractured Communities acquires a contemporary relevance that few historical works can match. And running through the narrative is a political philosophy grounded in democratic values and genuine concern for the marginalised.

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