Journal of Indian Social Transformation
Historical and Contemporary Studies
A peer-reviewed, open-access journal on India — its society, environment, economy, education, history, texts and heritage, in any period, from the earliest evidence to the present day.
We are particularly interested in work that begins with a question about India today and looks for its answer in the historical record. Why vegetarian diet is so widespread here, and what in the evidence actually accounts for it; why a district's water is governed the way it is; why one community sends its daughters to school and its neighbour does not.
Where the journal stands today
- First issue
- In preparation
- Editorial Board
- Being constituted
- ISSN
- Not yet applied for — see below
- Charges to authors
- None, at any stage
An online journal cannot hold an ISSN before its first issue exists: the ISSN National Centre of India assigns one only after seeing a published issue. We say so plainly, and we claim no indexing anywhere.
Free to publish in, free to read
There is no article processing charge, no submission fee, no page charge and no fee of any kind at any stage. This is a fixed commitment, not an introductory offer. Everything the journal publishes is free to read from the day it appears, with no subscription, no paywall and no registration.
Editorial work is unpaid — for the Editorial Board, for reviewers, and for the publishers. Nobody earns anything from this journal, and it carries no advertising.
What we publish
Research on Indian society in any period. Work at either end of time on its own is welcome — how society changed in the Gupta period, or what a present-day policy did to a district. It does not have to reach across the centuries, but it does have to be about people: texts, ideas and excavated sites belong here for what they tell us about the society behind them.
The test has three parts: the paper is about India, it has a before and an after, and what changes is society. Twenty years apart or two thousand, it makes no difference. What falls outside is the static snapshot, and the text or site studied for itself alone.
The Board is being formed
We are looking for senior teachers and researchers at a university or research institute who hold an institutional email address.
Most urgently: Indian history, epigraphy and archaeology, and Pali, Sanskrit or manuscript studies — but every field in our scope is welcome.
Five to ten minutes. It commits you to nothing, and nothing is published in your name unless you later agree to it in writing.