Medha is currently working under the supervision of Dr Taylor Sherman. She holds a BA in History from King’s College London and an MPhil in South Asian Studies from the University of Cambridge.

Medha is co-editor of the department's LSE International History Blog.

Provisional thesis title:

Linguistic Minorities and Belonging in Eastern India: Construction of Bengali-Bihari identity during the transition from colonial rule to independence (1912-1957)

Medha’s thesis examines the ways in which Bengalis with histories of settlement in Bihar conceptualised their belonging within a province (and later a state) that ostensibly was not their ‘homeland’ of Bengal. It draws on material from various official and non-official archives across eastern and northern India and attempts to provide a different perspective on conceptions of linguistic, territorial, and cultural belonging in India. While the linguistic redrawing of borders within India and the mechanisms that encouraged this reorganisation have been analysed in-depth, this thesis seeks to explore the way linguistic minorities and inhabitants in polyglot border regions who did not necessarily conflate linguistic and territorial belonging navigated these changes.