Mayukh Chakrabarty

Supervised by Dr Eleanor Newbigin, Mayukh traces how insurance companies, government regulators, and ordinary policyholders negotiated, contested, and reimagined what it meant to "cash in" on life and death in India. His research explores how everyday practices - calculating risk, pooling premiums, filing claims - became sites of political struggle over who counted as a citizen, who deserved protection, and who had the right to financial futures. 

His work draws on diverse archival sources, including company records, policy documents, government legislations and debates, trade union documents, and vernacular print materials. He also incorporates oral history and textual analysis to explore how financial institutions were experienced, resisted, and reshaped by their users throughout colonial and post-colonial periods. 

Before joining SOAS in September 2024, Mayukh conducted focused research on Indian life insurance history at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Mohali. This preliminary work included extensive literature reviews and archive identification in both India and the UK, establishing critical connections with the Life Insurance Corporation of India, trade unions, and relevant professional bodies, providing the groundwork for his doctoral research.

Mayukh holds a BS-MS Dual Degree in Mathematics with a minor in Science Society Studies from IISER Mohali (supported by the KVPY Scholarship from the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India). His master's dissertation investigated mathematical models across disciplines, with particular attention to insurance modelling and its historical development over four centuries. He graduated as the top student in the Mathematics department and was awarded the Professor S.N. Kaul Medal for outstanding all-round performance in 2023. 

Through his doctoral research, Mayukh aims to foreground the role of financial institutions in shaping modern subjectivities and to contribute meaningful insights to ongoing conversations in critical finance studies and South Asian historiography. His broader academic interests include the history of capitalism and financialization in South Asia, and the politics of science and technology.

• Institutional history of finance and insurance in South Asia,
• History of capitalism and financialization,
• Science and technology studies,
• Financial citizenship,
• Colonial and postcolonial governance

Cashing Lives: A History of Indian LIfe Insurance