Aditya Pratap Deo is Associate Professor at St Stephen’s College, Delhi.  He has a B. A. Honours degree from St Stephen’s College, Delhi, M. A. and M. Phil. in History from the University of Delhi, and a Ph. D. from Emory University, Atlanta, USA. His areas of study and research are Modern South Asian history, Anthropological history, Philosophy of history, histories of state formation, tribal peoples and Chhattisgarh. He has published and spoken widely on these themes, including his book ‘Kings, Spirits and Memory in Central India: Enchanting the State’ (Taylor and Francis, London 2021). His current work is on diverse concepts of the political in the princely states of Chhattisgarh. He has been an Exchange Scholar at Brown University, Providence, RI, USA; and a Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla.