Harit Joshi, winner of the Mohammad Habib Memorial Prize 2025
The Mohammad Habib Memorial Prize is awarded to the best book on medieval India in the last two years by the Indian History Congress, South Asia's largest association of professional historians.
The award ceremony was held at the 84ᵉ session of the IHC, at Brennen College, Thalaserry, Kerala, December 28-30, 2025.
Harit Joshi is a lecturer in the Indian, South Asian and Tibetan Studies department at Inalco, where he teaches Hindi and the history of ancient and medieval India. A member of the Centre d'études en sciences sociales sur les mondes africains, américains et asiatiques (CESSMA) laboratory, his research focuses mainly on the political and social history of India, more specifically on how political authority was articulated in Indo-Muslim regimes, notably the Delhi sultanate, the Mughal empire and its successor states, in the early modern era.
He is co-author of Hindi de Poche (Assimil, 2012) and has co-edited Ville et fleuve en Asie du Sud : Regards Croisés (Presses de l'Inalco, 2014) and Jardins d'Orient : Entre usages sociaux, pratiques politiques, et mémoire du passé (Presses Universitaires de Valenciennes, 2023).
The Ceremonial of Power. The Mughal Empire under Shah Jahan
The award-winning book analyzes court ceremonial during the reign of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan (1628-1658) and how these rituals played a part in asserting imperial power. It also explores representations of the emperor in historiography - from Mughal chroniclers to colonial and Indian historians - as well as the reappropriation of these ceremonial practices by successor states and then the British.
Further information
Conference "L'indologie contemporaine à l'Inalco - première partie"
As part of the "Les Orientalismes, chemin faisant" conference cycle proposed in 2024 by the Inalco Foundation, Harit Joshi and Anne Viguier, senior lecturer at Inalco and specialist in Indian history, present their latest books The Ceremonial of Power - The Mughal Empire under Shah Jahan (H. Joshi, Primus Books, 2025) and Brève histoire de l'Inde - du pays des mille dieux à la puissance mondiale (A.Viguier, Flammarion, 2023) - (L'Indologie contemporaine à l'Inalco - première partie - December 3, 2024).