Archives at NCBS: Research Fellowship and Scholar-in-Residence Program
The Archives at National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) is delighted to run a Research Fellowship and Scholar-in-Residence Program, toward developing scholarship based on the historical collections at the Archives at NCBS. This Program is generously supported by TNQ Foundation.
About the Archives at NCBS:
The Archives at NCBS (https://archives.ncbs.res.in) is a public collecting centre for the history of science in contemporary India. It has over 400,000 processed objects across over 100 collections in various forms, ranging from paper-based manuscripts to negatives to photographs, books, fine art, audio recordings, scientific equipment, letters, and field and lab notes. The 2000-square-feet state-of-the-art physical centre at NCBS includes space for research, processing, exhibitions, recording, and a leading-edge storage facility with monitors for temperature, light, humidity, air quality, water, fire, pests, and noise. Most of the archival catalog is available online (as are many of the digital objects from the collections).
For a full list of collections, access guidelines and vision of the Archives at NCBS, please visit our website: https://archives.ncbs.res.in/.
For queries about the program, email us at archives-scholars@ncbs.res.in.
About the Research Fellowship and Scholar-in-Residence Program:
Research fellows and scholars-in-residence engage with the collections at the Archives at NCBS over a period of 3-6 months.
Research fellows and scholars-in-residence will identify collection(s) that they wish to work on, and outline their area of research or inquiry. They will be expected to be resident in Bangalore and will have access to all campus facilities that is typically provided to research scholars, including library and archival facilities. During their stay, they would be expected to engage with the campus and archives, and also the public through informal talks, and at least one presentation at the end of their residency, culminating in research that is geared toward publication (like a research paper), science-history-art installation, or other modes. They are free to choose the mode of their presentation.
Research Fellowships will be awarded to scholars who can illustrate a keen area of inquiry, a demonstrated interest in the archival collections at the Archives at NCBS, and a plan for how the use of these collections would further understanding of the history and culture of science. Fellows are expected to work closely with the archivists and other researchers at the Archives at NCBS.
Scholars-in-residence are senior scholars who will typically bring with them a substantial body of work that deepens our collective understanding of the history and culture of science. They would also be known for working across disciplinary boundaries, including engagement with the public. They would bring with them a proposal and vision for how the use of these collections along with other archives would further understanding of the history and culture of science.
Previous Research Fellows and Scholars-in-Residence (in alphabetical order)
Abhinav Tyagi
Abhinav Tyagi is a science historian/STS scholar. He examines the social, historical, and structural factors that influenced the development of various strands of biotechnology in the Indian subcontinent during the twentieth century. He was a research fellow at the Archives at NCBS between January - March 2025 (https://archives.ncbs.res.in/scholars), and during his tenure, he focused on research within archival papers of M.S. Swaminathan and Swaminathan's colleagues. He holds a PhD from IIT Bombay and a Master’s from TISS, Mumbai.
Revisiting the “Green Revolution”: Statecraft of Cultivating Modernity
India’s independence in 1947 was against the backdrop of a significant food crisis. The Indian state launched campaigns such as “Grow More Food” to make food available for its massive population suffering from hunger. In 1963, significant breakthroughs were achieved in improving crop yields and food accessibility, after the introduction of semi-dwarf high-yield varieties (HYVs) of wheat, “Sharbati Sonora,” by an eminent agricultural scientist, M.S. Swaminathan, and his team at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) for the first time in India.
Introducing HYVs of seeds, part of what is now known as the “Green Revolution”, was also a product of Cold War geopolitics, symbolising the techno-scientific visions of modernity in India. To modernise agriculture, the Indian state expressed its confidence in agricultural scientists, plant breeders and technocrats to plan and execute agriculture programs in the country. This is seen, for example, in the setting-up of experimental or demonstration farms, seed development programs, new irrigation facilities, incentives to use chemical fertilisers and so on. The work emphasises the significance of statecraft, characterised by the state’s strategy of constructing developmental narratives, regulatory bodies, and institutional structures, in accommodating new agricultural practices and shaping the Indian agrarian landscape.
At the same time, the state actively made efforts to gain people’s trust and ensure public participation in the state-led agriculture initiatives. It launched new communication channels to convey its developmental narrative to farming communities and the masses in general. This work also discusses the creation of what is referred to as a “scientific public.”
Work links: https://youtu.be/uXBoo7L097c?si=u0UyzPyqd3RY8FSS
Achintya Anita Gurumurthy
Achintya Anita Gurumurthy has graduated with a Bachelor of Arts and Laws Degree from Jindal Global Law School. Their research deals with questions of caste, class and gender marginality in the history of the modern Indian judiciary, and the social and political pasts of people's movements.
Between the Devil and the Deep Lake: Courts and Environmentalists on Evictions in Bengaluru's Keres
My work is a study of the history of slum evictions and demolitions which have taken place on lake and tank beds in Bengaluru. It seeks to bring out the peculiar relationship of Bengaluru's lakes with its dwellers, and analyse how judicially mandated evictions have deployed environmental concerns to legitimise dispossession. Examining legal history, I look at how the rhetoric of nuisance within the law has reproduced imageries of slums as harmful to the environment. Placing these discourses beside the understanding that ecologists have of urban relations, I rely on the rich repository of environmentalists' interventions in the Archives at NCBS. In doing so, I trace how ecologists have conceptualised questions of housing and ecological conservation in the context of Bengaluru's lakes, in an attempt to imagine alternatives to the judicial narrative. Through this, I aim to bring out the varied voices within the environmental movement in Bengaluru by looking at state ecologists like A N Yellappa Reddy, as well as people's movements – including forums like the Environment Support Group. Thus, I hope to highlight how the history surrounding Bengaluru's lakes and its dwellers can offer rich perspectives in understanding questions surrounding commons, environment and housing within the Indian urban question.
Work links: https://youtu.be/H0tRsECEqKQ
Ghazala Shahabuddin
Ghazala Shahabuddin’s research interests lie at the cross-section of conservation science, wildlife history and policy. She has a PhD in Ecology and Conservation Biology from Duke University, USA (1998) for which she studied the ecology of forest fragmentation in Lago Guri, Venezuela. Since then, her work has expanded to the policy arena including pioneering work on conservation-induced displacement and community-based conservation in India which has been published extensively. Her book, Conservation at the Crossroads (Permanent Black, 2010), critically analyzes contemporary wildlife policy and implementation in India. She has also co-edited other books including Nature in the New Economy (with K. Sivaramakrishnan; Orient Blackswan, 2019) and Making Conservation Work (with M. Rangarajan, Permanent Black, 2007). Ghazala has received the Aga Khan International Scholarship (1995-97), New India Fellowship (2007), and University of Pennsylvania’s Centre for Advanced Study of India Fellowship (2015). She worked as an Associate Professor at Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University in Delhi where she helped set up and taught at the School of Human Ecology from 2009-2014. Since August 2021, she has been a Visiting Professor to Environmental Studies at Ashoka University, India and in 2024, she joined as a Scholar-in-Residence at the Archives at NCBS (https://archives.ncbs.res.in/scholars). She is currently researching the practice of bird research and conservation in India, as well as leading a long-term field study on anthropogenic environmental change in oak forests of the Western Himalayas.
Colours of Coexistence: Ravi Sankaran and Endangered Bird Conservation in India
Since Independence, the preservationist doctrine has been the principal guiding framework for wildlife conservation in India, advocating unconditional protection for wild species. Yet, during the late 20th century, human-wildlife coexistence emerged as a distinct possibility; there was even a rethinking of outright bans on hunting and ecosystem use. Ravi Sankaran (1963-2009), a prominent Indian ecologist, grappled with questions of human-bird coexistence, being one of the few biologists of his time to do so. While he was possessed of a passion and a penchant for unraveling the ecology of endangered birds surviving in remote areas, he also worked towards their conservation closely with marginalized communities who shared their habitats. Based on the Ravi Sankaran Papers at the Archives at NCBS, I explore his vision for human-bird coexistence in three strikingly different social-ecological situations: the Lesser Florican (Central India), Edible-nest Swiftlet (Andaman & Nicobar Islands) and the Blyth’s Tragopan (Nagaland Hills). How did Sankaran visualize the possibilities of human cohabitation with wild birds, in a developing country beleaguered by the inordinate demands on land? Further, how did he use ecological science to incorporate socio-economic dimensions into real-life bird conservation? Finally, I touch on his negotiations with wildlife policy of the time while he worked around these difficult questions.
Work links: https://youtu.be/Xb5y5sn3aNE
Lesser florican: Ravi Sankaran’s lifelong quest to save the terrestrial bird
Kanika Singh
Kanika Singh is a historian working on public history, museum and heritage. Her recent book, The Story of a Sikh Museum: Heritage, Politics, Popular Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2025), is a study of Sikh museums in contemporary India. She is Director, Centre for Writing & Communication, Ashoka University and was a Scholar-in-Residence at Archives at NCBS.
What is a museum?
What is a museum? The International Council of Museums, the highest international body of museums, nearly fell apart on this question. The reason was bitter dispute among members about this seemingly innocuous and indeed straightforward question. The issue of defining a museum is less about its form but more importantly about its purpose. When we ask what is a museum, we also ask what does it do and why are we building so many museums. This work uses examples of museums from India and from the world to think about the museum as an institution and its relationship to society.
Work links: https://youtu.be/Sp5OE7tFIs4
Karthik Ram
Karthik Ramaswamy was a biologist in his former life, specialising in animal behaviour and evolutionary biology. He got his undergraduate degree from St Josephs’s College (now University) in Bangalore and Master’s from Pondicherry University. After a stint as a Project Associate at the Centre for Ecological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, where he studied social behaviour in ants, he obtained his PhD from the University of Missouri-Columbia. For his PhD, he investigated the role of vibrational signals in mediating sociality in a group of insects called treehoppers. He then taught biology at Augustana College, a liberal arts and science college in Illinois for a few years before moving back to IISc where he worked as a science communicator and educator until last year. He is now a freelancer and a research fellow at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) in Bangalore.
The Evolution of Lal Bagh: Insights from the Archives at NCBS
A botanical garden can be thought of as constructed nature, a curated collection of living plant specimens, seeking to provide an experience of nature. Inherent in the idea of constructed nature is that its evolution and perception are shaped by cultural, social and historical contexts. Lal Bagh in Bangalore is an example of such a space, a botanical garden whose creation and development were the result of motivations ranging from religious beliefs, colonial disposition, enlightenment values and aesthetic sensibilities. In my work, I trace the history of Lal Bagh through the prism of constructed nature by drawing on material from the Archives at NCBS.
Manjita Mukharji
Manjita Mukharji's research interests lie in the interstices of various kinds of knowledges and knowledge-making. She did her PhD (SOAS, UK) on the song texts of the Bauls of colonial Bengal that situated itself in the intersections of literary study, history, and ethnomusicology. Briefly, she has also taught at the University of Toronto and University of Pennsylvania. Currently, as a Scholar-in-Residence at the Archives at NCBS, her research project on the bird illustrations in the popular ornithological field guides of 20th century India seeks to bring the fields of History of Science and Art History in conversation with each other.
A Bird in Hand: Illustrating Scientific Realism in 20th c. Popular Bird Guides of India
Popular Indian bird guides of the twentieth century – from Hugh Whistler, Salim Ali and Dillon Ripley to Richard Grimmett, Tim and Carol Inskipp – came to be constituted by a triad of desired features: a combination of "strict scientific accuracy with non-technical language and popular appeal – concise accounts of life history and habits and, above all, good coloured illustrations supplemented by simple clues to field identification" and easy on the average purse. What do we, the uninitiated lay bird enthusiast, actually see when we look at these bird illustrations? How "natural" or "real" are these scientifically accurate illustrations? What does training the scientific eye entail and what do the scientifically trained ornithologist/artist's eyes see and render? Is the bird in hand the same as the one in the bush?
Instead of looking at these illustrations as passive visual aids to the dissemination of ornithological knowledges, I seek to trace how the shifting stakes of the various actors – ornithologists, artists, and publishers – shape the final image of the bird in the field.
Work links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-1WgZdWc9A
Mansi Dhingra
Mansi Dhingra is a researcher currently working on archiving Puroik oral literature from northeast India. She holds a Master's degree in Wildlife Biology and Conservation from NCBS, with her principal research interests lying in ethnobotany and people-plant relationships. In this talk, she'll share her experience as the researcher and archivist during her term at the Archives at NCBS. She is also an artist and likes to convey her work and personal stories through her art.
What can archiving teach you about the archive?
We often think of archives as quiet places—final homes for memory and knowledge. But when you’re the one doing the archiving, you begin to see things differently. In the process of building a collection of endangered Puroik oral literature, I found myself not simply preserving the past, but stepping into a complex and deeply relational space—where questions of consent, sensitivity, and access continually reshaped what the archive could or should be. This work reflects on what archiving taught me about the nature of archives themselves: that they are not static repositories, but evolving sites of care, responsibility, and negotiation. Through this experience, I came to see archiving not as a technical task, but as a way of learning—about people, power, and how we choose to remember.
Work links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrk5Iy2AcSs
Nisha Bhakat
Nisha Bhakat is a wildlife researcher interested in the past and present of wildlife beyond protected areas in India. She holds a Master’s degree in Wildlife Biology & Conservation from NCBS, India and has studied birds in the Dooars and the Nilgiris.
The Fall of a Florican
The story of the Bengal Florican (Houbaropsis bengalensis) is fascinating yet tragic. Known for its unique courtship display, the Bengal Florican has seen its population plummet due to habitat loss, hunting, and changes in land use. Inspired by Dr. Ravi Sankaran’s research in the late 1980s (through the Ravi Sankaran Papers located at the Archives at NCBS), this study attempts to unravel the species’ history, Sankaran’s contributions, and conservation efforts over time. An attempt is also made to geographically locate the earliest record of the species. The study examines historical insights into the Bengal Florican, tracing early documentation in the 1700s, followed by detailed studies about its life history in the next century. Sankaran’s pioneering research, including India-wide surveys and meticulous notes on behaviour of individual birds, highlight the Florican’s reliance on grassland ecosystems and the importance of their conservation. Despite these findings, limited conservation efforts and changes in grassland management have led to their further decline. Today, the Bengal Florican seems to have disappeared from Dudhwa National Park where Sankaran did his doctoral research, and possibly even from Bengal from which it gets its name. This study calls for a reassessment of conservation strategies, integrating archival literature to inform them, and addressing knowledge gaps in efforts towards the survival of this iconic species.
Work links: https://youtu.be/dINcRvegp1s
Final essay
Parvathy V
Parvathy works as an archivist, organising and cataloguing collections at the Archives at NCBS to make them accessible to the public. With a background in environmental history, she has archived collections that document the intricate relationships of communities with their environment and highlight the critical narratives of environmental activism. She also tries to actively research these collections to document the histories of human landscapes.
Contested Lands and Emerging Citizens: Migration, Conservation, and Legal Struggles in Wayanad
The research looks at the interconnected processes of migration, citizen-making and conservation conflicts in Wayanad, a district in Kerala well-known for its biodiverse landscape. It draws on archival material at the Archives at NCBS of the Wayanad Prakrithi Samrakshana Samiti (WPSS), a grassroots organization engaged in environmental activism in Wayanad. The study examines the intersection of environmental movements and land struggles, revealing how conservation conflicts most often stem from contestations and claims over land. It further explores how historical migrations—ranging from medieval settler communities and colonial plantations to twentieth-century migrants from Travancore—have shaped these conflicts and claims. By analysing the court cases filed by the WPSS, the study also looks at how a citizen is fashioned through legal conflicts against both private capital and the state. In doing so, the study argues that Wayanad is a critical zone for understanding the co-production of environmental justice and citizenship in contemporary India. The work discusses these key insights from the research and how land, litigation and identity are entangled in this landscape.
Work links: https://youtu.be/0RCrZ4ssOMg
Sanjna GY
Sanjna is a researcher, archivist and poet. Her academic and creative work grows from the spaces between the disciplines of anthropology, history and archival sciences. She holds an undergraduate degree in International Relations from the University of Edinburgh and a postgraduate degree in Anthropology and Sociology from the Graduate Institute of Geneva.
Atoms, Agriculture, Aperture: Photographing ‘Peaceful’ Uses of Nuclear Energy in India, c. 1960-1977
What kind of portals to scientific histories do photographs open? How does photography shape perceptions of ‘peaceful’ and ‘successful’ scientific projects?
This work grapples with these questions by weaving the histories of nuclear and agricultural sciences with the evolution of photography and photojournalism, from 1960 to 1977. During this period, the American-driven Atoms for Peace efforts spurred transnational projects between Indian scientists, the state machinery and international organizations to expand the use of radioisotopes in the fields of agricultural sciences and animal husbandry.
The intent is to trace the evolution of these curious collaborations through photographs, while examining the medium itself. To do so, I draw from photographs and print media collections at the Archives at NCBS, the UN Archives and Library in Geneva and the International Atomic Energy Agency archives. I invite attendees to interpret photographs as crucial objects for shaping institutional agendas and reflect on the politics of producing, circulating and archiving photographs.
Work links: https://youtu.be/T1uyYi9YB-w
Taksh Sangwan
Taksh Sangwan is currently a project associate at the Archives at NCBS. He is working with Dr Samira Sheikh, the fifth Obaid Siddiqi Chair in the History and Culture of Science at NCBS, on understanding Early Modern maps of India. Prior to this, he worked as an archivist. His other interests include ecology and natural history.
Following in Surajmal's Footsteps
My work features unfolding methodologies for interpreting an important 17th-century map of Gujarat and Rajasthan found in the City Palace Museum, Jaipur. At first sight, such maps may seem hard to follow. But, as my studies show, GIS-based analysis as well as historical research can help unlock the secrets of Indian maps and shed light on why and how they were created.
Work links: https://youtu.be/_30rXiFJf40
Vrushal Pendharkar
Vrushal Pendharkar is an independent journalist covering the environment. In his time as a Research Fellow at the Archives at NCBS, he has looked at the Carl D’Silva and Ravi Sankaran Papers.
Making of a field bird guide - The Carl D’Silva Papers
Field guides are reference books used to identify the taxa they represent. There are different field guides for mammals, birds, butterflies, reptiles, trees and other life forms. Field guides could be made of photographs or illustrations. The guides are useful to wildlife tourists on safari or researchers and nature enthusiasts on field. But what goes in the making of a field guide? The Carl D’Silva Papers at the Archives at NCBS enable telling of the backstory of the work a wildlife artist puts in to illustrate for a field guide on Indian birds. This work unpacks the process undertaken by D’Silva to create several plates in the field guide. The study is an interpretation of this process as understood by the Research Fellow. By referencing rough sketches, drafts on arrangement, reviews and correspondence, the work tries to make an analogy of the process not too different to that of publication of scientific research: the process of art mirrors the process of science. The work also tries to capture the history of field guides in India, and their evolution from the late 19th century British India.
Carl D’Silva was a wildlife artist based in Goa. He is the only Indian artist to have worked on the popular field guide ‘Birds of Indian Subcontinent’ by Richard Grimmet, Carol Inskipp and Tim Inskipp. He also illustrated for the 13th edition of Salim Ali’s ‘The Book of Indian Birds’.
Work links: https://youtu.be/o24mx4Ud31w
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