Dr Aashique Ahmed Iqbal is a historian of modern South Asia. He is the author of The Aeroplane and the Making of Modern India (Oxford University Press 2023), which studies India’s transformation from colony to sovereign republic through the prism of aviation. He has also written articles on history for general audiences on a number of platforms including India Forum, EPW Engage, and Teacher Plus.
Aashique hails from Ooty and took his BA in History at Loyola College, Chennai. He received his MA and MPhil in Modern History at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and also holds a DPhil in History from the University of Oxford. He has received multiple scholarships including the Felix scholarship, the Royal Historical Society Marshall Fellowship, and the Maulana Azad National Fellowship.
Aashique’ research focuses on the relationship between technology, politics and culture. He is especially interested in the role of aviation in South Asian History. Aashique’s work touches on a wide number of subfields including transport history, business history, science and technology studies, warfare and state formation. His next research project studies the role of aviation on leisure travel with its implications for culture, economy and environment.
Book
2023 The Aeroplane and the Making of Modern India. New Delhi, London: Oxford University Press.
Reviewed in Technology and Culture, Vol 64. No 3, 3rd July 2023 by John D. Wong.
Journal Article
‘Jodhpur and the Aeroplane: Aviation and Diplomacy in an Indian State1924-1952’, British Journal for the History of Science, Published online on 1st September 2023.
Public History
‘Plane Tales: Air India’s Return to the Tatas’, India Forum website, October 2021.
‘Seen from a Train Window: Travel and Imagining India’, March to Freedom: Reflections on India’s Independence, Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi, 2022.
‘Tech Challenges in the History Classroom’, Teacher Plus magazine, June 2023.
‘Flights to Freedom: Independence and the Indian Air Force’, EPW Engage, September 2022.
Aashique has taught or is teaching the following courses:
