About

Deepa Nair is an assistant teaching professor of history at Carnegie Mellon University. She is involved in redesigning courses to incorporate diverse perspectives, with a focus on enhancing inclusion, equity, and diversity in education. During her fellowship, she is redesigning the course Gender in South Asia, where she will explore strategies to enable student participation, remove barriers, and consider a variety of learning needs and preferences.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Philosophy
• Political Science
• Religious studies
• History
• Anthropology
• Art
• Art history
• Law
• Gender studies
• Media studies

Selected publications

• Navigating Marginality: The Complex Realities of Muslim Minorities in India

  IntechOpen eBooks · 2025-04-22 · 1 citations

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This paper examines the contemporary multifaceted experiences of Muslims as a minority group in India. With over 200 million Muslims, India is home to one of the largest Muslim populations in the world. Yet, their position in the nation’s political and social landscape remains fraught with complexities. This paper delves into historical and contemporary challenges faced by Muslims, including communal violence and the rise of majoritarian nationalism. Through case studies, media analysis, and policy reviews, this research provides a comprehensive understanding of the precariousness of Muslim identity in India’s democracy and the struggles for equality, security, and representation in the face of growing religious polarization.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• SOUTH ASIA - State, Society and Politics

  AYBU AVESIS · 2023-01-01

  book
  Publisher

• The “Imagined Other”

  Journal of Educational Media Memory and Society · 2021 · 5 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Political Science

  In 2014, the National Democratic Alliance, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), won the general election with the highest number of seats won by any party since 1984 and went on to win a second term victory in 2019. Since the rise of the BJP, Hindu nationalist interventions into education have increased. Their agenda has been to “indigenise, nationalise and spiritualise” education in India. To this end, textbooks were written to promote a Hindu majoritarian idea of India that sees Hindus as the primary citizens of India and categorizes Muslims as the “other”. This article outlines the political context in which Hindu nationalists have recently attempted to rewrite Indian history by focusing on the period of Muslim rule in India. It looks at textbooks published by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and media reports about regional history rewriting in India.

  PublisherDOI

• Hinduism in America: A Convergence of Worlds

  Ethnic and Racial Studies · 2021 · 3 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Sociology
  • Religious studies

  This book is as much a personal journey for Long whose first encounter with Hinduism was through George Harrison’s song, My Sweet Lord, as it is an exploration of a story of two worlds, one of Hind...

  PublisherDOI

• Textbook Conflicts in South Asia

  Journal of Educational Media Memory and Society · 2010-09-01 · 19 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  The aftermath of World War II saw the emergence of many new nation-states on the Asian geopolitical map and a simultaneous attempt by these states to claim the agency of nationhood and to create an aura of a homogenous national identity. Textbooks have been the most potent tools used by nations to inject an idea of a national memory - in many instances with utter disregard for fundamental contradictions within the socio-political milieu. In South Asia, political sensitivity towards transmission of the past is reflected in the attempts of these states to revise or rewrite versions which are most consonant with the ideology of dominant players (political parties, religious organizations, ministries of education, publishing houses, NGOs, etc.) concerning the nature of the state and the identity of its citizens. This paper highlights the fundamental fault lines in the project of nation-building in states in South Asia by locating instances of the revision or rewriting of dominant interpretations of the past. By providing an overview of various revisionist exercises in South Asia, an attempt will be made to highlight important issues that are fundamental to the construction of identities in this diverse continent.

  PublisherDOI

• Contending "Historical" Identities in India

  Journal of Educational Media Memory and Society · 2009-03-01 · 3 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  The controversy over rewriting history textbooks in India in 2000 not only revealed the divergent renditions of collective memory but also evoked decades of contention over self-representation and cultural identity. This article explores these "multiple" renderings of a "singular" past and contends the formation of "historical identities" by arguing that divergent use of reason and interpretation leads to a layered and uid Indian identity leaving it open for contestation. By situating the case of the Mughal ruler Aurangzeb within the milieu from which textbook controversies emanate, the article suggests an alternative dimension for looking at the controversy—instead of the usual binary concept of "secular" versus "communal" history. At the root of the controversy is not merely politicization but also divergent perspectives of looking at the past and the resultant rethinking and reworking of dominant notions of it.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• David Kloos

  Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies

  1 shared

• Prasenjit Duara

  1 shared

• Annemarie Samuels

  1 shared

• Julius Bautista

  1 shared

• Philip Fountain

  Victoria University of Wellington

  1 shared

• Jeremy J. Kingsley

  1 shared

• Arif Jamal

  National University of Singapore

  1 shared

• Dina Afrianty

  1 shared

Labs

• Department of History - Carnegie Mellon UniversityPI

Awards & honors

• Provost's Inclusive Teaching Fellowship (2021-22)