DAVID GILMARTIN

Department of History
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, N.C. 27695-8108
Email: david_gilmartin@ncsu.edu

University Education
Ph.D. - University of California, Berkeley, South Asian History, 1979
M.A. - University of California, Berkeley, South Asian History, 1972
B.A. - University of Michigan, History, 1971

Academic Employment
2012-present – Distinguished Professor of History, Department of History, NC State University
1994-2012 - Professor, Department of History, North Carolina State University
1989-1994 - Associate Professor, Department of History, North Carolina State University
1983-1989 - Assistant Professor, Department of History, North Carolina State University
1982-1983 - Visiting Lecturer, School of International Studies, University of Washington
1981-1982 - Field Director, Berkeley Urdu Language Program in Pakistan, Lahore
Spring 1981 - Lecturer, Department of History, University of California, Berkeley
1979-1980 - Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Oriental Studies, University of Arizona

Research Grants and Fellowships

September 2017-May 2018 - Fellow, National Humanities Center
September 2011-June 2012 - Fellow, Stanford Humanities Center
December 2006-January 2007, May-July 2007 - Short-term Research Grant, American Institute
of Indian Studies, Delhi
September 2001-June 2002 - Fellow, National Humanities Center
September 1997-June 1998 - Fellow, Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington, D.C.
July 1992-June 1993 - National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship
January-July 1988 - Senior Fulbright Research Grant in Pakistan, Lahore and Faisalabad
Spring 1987 - Short-term Research Grant, American Institute of Indian Studies, Delhi &
Bombay
1981-1982 - American Institute of Pakistan Studies, post-doctoral research in Pakistan (while
Field Director of Berkeley Urdu Program)
1974-1975 - Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad, India and Pakistan

Books
South Asian Sovereignty: The Conundrum of Worldly Power, co-edited with Pamela Price and
Arild Ruud (New Delhi: Routledge, forthcoming) [Includes single-authored
“Introduction” and “Time and the Sovereignty of the People”]
Blood and Water: The Indus River Basin in Modern History (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2015), awarded American Institute of Pakistan Studies book prize for best book on
Pakistan, 2016; Paperback ed., Spring 2020
Civilization and Modernity: Narrating the Creation of Pakistan (New Delhi: Yoda Press, 2014)

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 [Collection of revised, previously published articles with a new Introduction]
Muslim Voices: Community and the Self in South Asia, co-edited with Usha Sanyal and Sandria
Freitag (New Delhi: Yoda Press, 2013)
Expanding Frontiers in South Asian and World History: Essays in Honor of John F. Richards,
co-edited with Richard M. Eaton, Munis D. Faruqui, and Sunil Kumar (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2013)
Beyond Turk and Hindu: Rethinking Religious Identities in Islamicate South Asia, co-edited with
Bruce Lawrence (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000)
Empire and Islam: Punjab and the Making of Pakistan (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1988; London: I. B. Tauris, 1988; Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1988)

Articles
“Voting, Religion, and the People’s Sovereignty in Late Colonial India.” In Martin Fuchs and
Vasudha Dalmia, eds., Religious Interactions in Modern India (Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 2019) pp. 306-335.
“Law and Politics: A Brief History.” In S. Y. Quraishi, ed., The Great March of Democracy:
Seven Decades of India’s Elections (Delhi: Penguin, 2019), pp. 29-38.
“Imperial Sovereignty in Mughal and British Forms,” History and Theory, 56, 1 (March 2017)
pp. 80-88.
“Rethinking the Public through the Lens of Sovereignty,” South Asia, 38, 3 (2015) pp. 371-86.
“The Historiography of India’s Partition: Between Civilization and Modernity,” Journal of
Asian Studies, 74, 1 (February 2015) pp. 23-41.
“The Paradox of Patronage and the People’s Sovereignty.” In Anastasia Piliavsky, ed.,
Patronage as Politics in South Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014) pp.
125-153.
“Introduction to ‘Election Law in India’ (co-authored with Robert Moog), Election Law Journal,
11, 2 (June 2012) [Guest edited issue with Robert Moog].
“Towards a Global History of Voting: Sovereignty, the Diffusion of Ideas, and the Enchanted
Individual,” Religions, 3, 2 (May 2012) pp. 407-423.
“Environmental History, Biradari, and the Making of Pakistani Punjab.” In Anshu Malhotra
and Farina Mir, eds., Punjab Reconsidered: History, Culture and Practice (Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2012) pp. 289-319.
“Secularism and the State in Pakistan: Introduction,” (co-authored with Humaira Iqtidar)
Modern Asian Studies, 25, 3 (2011) pp. 491-499 [Guest edited issue with Humeira
Iqtidar].
“Art on Trial: Civilization and Religion in the Persona and Painting of M. F. Husain” (co-
authored with Barbara Metcalf). In Sumathi Ramaswamy, ed., Barefoot across the
Nation: M. F. Husain and the Idea of India. (London: Routledge, 2010) pp. 54-74.
"Rule of Law, Rule of Life: Caste, Democracy, and the Courts in India," American Historical
Review, 115, 2 (April 2010): 406-427.
"Sufism, Exemplary Lives, and Social Science in Pakistan," in Carl W. Ernst and Richard C.
Martin, eds., Contemporary Islam Between Theory and Practice (Columbia: University
of South Carolina Press, 2010) pp. 159-78.
“Afterword: Living the Tensions of the State, the Nation, and Everyday Life.” In Naveeda

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 Khan, ed., Beyond Crisis: Re-evaluating Pakistan (London: Routledge, 2010) pp. 521-30
"One Day’s Sultan: T. N. Seshan and Indian Democracy," Contributions to Indian Sociology,
43, 2 (March-August 2009): 247-284.
“The Strange Career of the Rule of Law in the Punjab,” Pakistan Vision, 10, 2 (December 2009)
pp. 1-21
"Muslim League Appeals for the Creation of Pakistan" (Introduction and translation of
documents) in Barbara Metcalf, ed., South Asian Islam in Practice (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2009) pp. 409-423.
"State, Sovereignty, and the People: A Comparison of the ‘Rule of Law’ in China and India"
and “Response to Comments on Our Paper,” (co-authored with Jonathan Ocko), Journal
of Asian Studies, 68, 1 (February 2009) pp. 55-100, 127-133.
“Election Law and the ‘People’ in Colonial and Postcolonial India,” in Rochona Mazumdar,
Andrew Sartori, and Dipesh Chakrabarty, eds., From the Colonial to the Postcolonial:
India and Pakistan in Transition (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007)
"Imperial Rivers: Irrigation and British Visions of Empire," in Dane Kennedy and Durba
Ghosh, eds., Decentring Empire: Britain, India and the Transcolonial World (New Delhi:
Orient Longman, 2006) pp. 76-103.
"A Networked Civilization?" in Bruce Lawrence and miriam cooke, eds., Muslim Networks:
From Hajj to Hip Hop (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005) pp. 51-68.
“Migration and Modernity: The State, the Punjabi Village, and the Settling of the Canal
Colonies,” in Ian Talbot and Shinder Thandi, eds., People On The Move: Punjabi
Colonial, and Post-Colonial Migration (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2004) pp. 3-
20.
"Irrigation and the Baloch Frontier," in Mansura Haidar, ed., Sufis, Sultans and Feudal Orders
(New Delhi: Manohar, 2004) pp. 331-389.
"Water and Waste: Nature, Productivity and Colonialism in the Indus Basin," Economic and
Political Weekly, Volume 38, number 48 (November 29-December 5, 2003) pp. 5057-
5065. [Reprinted in Amita Baviskar, ed., Contested Grounds: Essays on Nature, Culture,
and Power (New Delhi: Oxford, 2008) pp. 13-37.] 
"Appropriating the Punjabi Folk: Gender and Other Dichotomies in Colonial and Postcolonial
Folk Studies" (co-authored with Michelle Maskiell) in Charles Kennedy, Kathleen
McNeil, Carl Ernst and David Gilmartin, eds., Pakistan at the Millennium (Karachi:
Oxford University Press, 2003)
"Cattle, Crime, and Colonialism: Property as Negotiation in North India," Indian Economic and
Social History Review, Vol. 40, no. 1 (January-March 2003) pp. 33-56.
"The Irrigating Public: The State and Local Management in Colonial Irrigation," in Stig Toft
Madsen, ed., State, Society and the Environment in South Asia (London: Curzon Press,
1999) pp. 236-65.
"Partition, Pakistan, and South Asian History: In Search of a Narrative," Journal of Asian
Studies, vol. 57, no. 4 (November 1998) pp. 1068-95.
"A Magnificent Gift: Muslim Nationalism and the Election Process in Colonial Punjab,"
Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 40, no. 3 (July 1998) pp. 415-36
"Models of the Hydraulic Environment: Colonial Irrigation, State Power and Community in the
Indus Basin," in David Arnold and Ram Guha, eds., Nature, Culture and Imperialism:

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 Essays on the Environmental History of South Asia (Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1995) pp. 210-236
"Scientific Empire and Imperial Science: Colonialism and Irrigation Technology in the Indus
Basin," Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 53, no. 4 (November 1994) pp. 1127-1149
"Biraderi and Bureaucracy: The Politics of Muslim Kinship Solidarity in 20th Century Punjab,"
International Journal of Punjab Studies, Vol. 1, no. 1 (January-June 1994) pp. 1-29
"Democracy, Nationalism and the Public: A Speculation on Colonial Muslim Politics," South
Asia, Vol. XIV, no. 1 (June 1991) pp. 123-140 [Reprinted in James D. Le Sueur, ed.,
The Decolonization Reader (New York: Routlege, 2003) pp. 191-203]
"'Divine Displeasure' and Muslim Elections: The Shaping of Community in Twentieth-Century
Punjab," in D. A. Low, ed., The Political Inheritance of Pakistan (London: Macmillan,
1991) pp. 106-129
"The Shahidganj Mosque Incident: A Prelude to Pakistan," in Ira M. Lapidus and Edmund Burke
III, eds., Islam, Politics, and Social Movements (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1988) pp. 146-168
"Customary Law and Shari'at in British Punjab," in Katherine Ewing, ed., Shari'at and
Ambiguity in South Asian Islam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988) pp. 43-
62
"Shrines, Succession and Sources of Moral Authority," in Barbara D. Metcalf, ed., Moral
Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1984) pp. 221-240
"Kinship, Women and Politics in 20th Century Punjab," in Gail Minault, ed., The Extended
Family: Women and Political Participation in India and Pakistan (Columbia, Mo.: South
Asia Books, 1981; Delhi: Chanakaya Publications, 1981) pp. 251-273
"Religious Leadership and the Pakistan Movement in the Punjab," Modern Asian Studies (July
1979) pp. 485-517

Offices in National Organizations, Editorships, and Membership on National Committees

John F. Richards Book Prize Committee, American Historical Association, 2013-15
South Asia Associate Editor, Journal of Asian Studies, 2007-2012
Secretary, American Institute of Pakistan Studies, 2003-2006
Member, Fellowship Selection Committee, Fulbright IIE (South Asia), 2001-03; 2011-12
Member, Executive Committee, American Institute of Indian Studies, 1998-2001
Member, Fellowship Selection Committee, American Institute of Indian Studies, 1997-98
Member, Advisory Committee, Berkeley Urdu Language Program in Pakistan, 1997-2006
Chair, South Asia Council, Association for Asian Studies, 1993-95
Member, Ad Hoc Committee for review of the Joint Committee on South Asia of the Social
Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies (Report Issued
December 1989)