Biography

I am a historian of modern South Asia and the Indian diaspora in Southeast Asia. I earned my PhD in History and MPhil in Modern South Asian Studies (Distinction) from Cambridge University, where I held the Gates Cambridge Scholarship and Holland Rose Studentship. My MPhil dissertation won the CA Bayly Best Dissertation Award. My research interests relate to state-society interactions in the late colonial and postcolonial periods. I am particularly interested in the enduring legacies of social movements that trace their origins to late colonial India. I have published my articles on alcohol prohibition, and the Dravidian movement in leading area studies and historical peer-reviewed journals. My book, Sober State: Origins of Alcohol Prohibition in India, is currently in press with Cambridge University Press. The first book on alcohol prohibition in India, Sober State explains why attempts to ban alcohol persist in the world’s largest democracy and fastest-growing alcohol market. This groundbreaking book draws on extensive archival research and rich vernacular sources to explain why prohibition has been a surprisingly resilient policy, despite being a “sobering” site of consensus-building for the state.

Previous Education

National University of Singapore B.A. (Hons) History 2003

Links

http://www.history.hku.hk/staff-d-alagirisamy.html
https://darineealagirisamy.wordpress.com/about
https://www.linkedin.com/in/darinee-alagirisamy-8088603b/?originalSubdomain=uk