عن المجلة

About Indian Mobility History Review (IMHR)

Movement has always been central to the making of South Asia — the movement of people across borders and provinces, of labour between village and city, of communities displaced by conflict and Partition, and of goods and ideas along railway lines that reshaped the subcontinent's geography. Yet the history of this movement has too often been studied in fragments — railway history treated as infrastructure history, migration treated as social history, displacement treated as political history — rarely as a connected whole. Indian Mobility History Review (IMHR) is conceived to address this gap, offering a dedicated scholarly space where mobility, in all its forms, can be studied as a unifying historical force.

Starting Year: 2026 (Call for Papers for the First Issue announced [date], first issue to be published [date])

Frequency: Biannual (January–June and July–December)

Format of Publication: Online (Digital Format)

Subject: History, South Asian Studies (Interdisciplinary)

Language: English

Indian Mobility History Review (IMHR) is a peer-reviewed, biannual, online, open-access academic journal published by Allahabad Academic Press, Prayagraj.

The Journal provides a rigorous and accessible platform for:

  1. Academics
  2. Independent researchers
  3. Doctoral and early-career scholars
  4. Archivists and public historians
  5. Policy researchers working on infrastructure and migration

to engage with the history of railways, migration, and mobility in modern South Asia through original research and critical scholarship.

Intellectual Vision

At its core, IMHR is committed to studying mobility — railways, migration, and movement — as a connected historical phenomenon rather than as isolated subfields. Much existing scholarship remains constrained by:

  1. Disciplinary silos separating infrastructure history from social and migration history
  2. Narrow national framing that overlooks shared mobility histories across India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh
  3. Limited platforms dedicated specifically to mobility and migration as a field of historical inquiry

IMHR aspires to counter these limitations by maintaining:

  • Rigorous double-blind peer review
  • Transparent and efficient editorial processes
  • Structured, issue-based publication
  • Free and unrestricted access to scholarship

The Journal prioritizes scholarship that combines archival rigor with clear, accessible academic writing.

Scope and Coverage

Reflecting its focus on the history of movement in modern South Asia, IMHR welcomes original and unpublished contributions across the following areas, including but not limited to:

  1. Colonial and Post-Colonial Railway History
  2. Labour Migration, Indenture, and Diaspora Studies
  3. Partition, Displacement, and Refugee History
  4. Urban History and the Social History of Mobility
  5. Transport Infrastructure and Development Policy
  6. Mobility, Caste, Gender, and Religious Identity
  7. Comparative and Transnational South Asian Mobility Studies

The Journal encourages:

  1. Archivally grounded original research
  2. Theoretical and historiographical innovation
  3. Critical essays and review articles
  4. Interdisciplinary approaches drawing on economics, sociology, and geography

Sections of the Journal

IMHR is structured to accommodate diverse forms of scholarly engagement and consists of the following sections:

  1. Research Articles: Peer-reviewed original research within the journal's scope, submitted either in response to a specific Call for Papers or as general submissions.
  1. Archival Notes: Short contributions introducing or contextualising primary sources — railway records, migration statistics, gazetteers, maps, and oral history collections — of value to researchers in the field.
  1. Book Reviews and Review Essays: Critical reviews of academic works relevant to railway, migration, and mobility history, including monographs, edited volumes, and relevant works of history and memoir.
  1. Interviews: Conversations with historians and researchers working on mobility, migration, and infrastructure history in South Asia.
  1. Responses: Scholarly responses to research previously published in IMHR, sustaining academic dialogue across issues.

Peer Review and Editorial Process

All submissions undergo a rigorous double-blind peer review process, in accordance with internationally recognised ethical standards, including the principles articulated by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Each manuscript is evaluated for:

  1. Originality
  2. Scholarly contribution
  3. Methodological and archival rigor
  4. Ethical integrity
  5. Clarity and coherence

Accepted manuscripts are further refined through structured editorial review while preserving the author's intellectual autonomy.

Publication Model

  • Indian Mobility History Review follows a Biannual, Issue-Based Publication Model.
  • IMHR does not publish on a rolling or continuous basis.
  • All accepted manuscripts for a given cycle are compiled and released together on a single official publication date.
  • Each issue is curated to ensure thematic coherence and scholarly balance.

This model ensures:

  • Editorial consistency
  • Structured academic dialogue
  • Clear citation and indexing integrity
  • Equal visibility to all contributors within an issue
  • Open Access and Licensing
  • IMHR is firmly committed to the principles of open knowledge and academic accessibility.
  • All content is freely available to readers without subscription barriers.
  • There is no embargo period.
  • Articles are accessible immediately upon publication.
  • All published works are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
  • Authors retain copyright while allowing broad dissemination of their work with proper attribution.

Institutional Affiliation

Indian Mobility History Review is published by Allahabad Academic Press, Prayagraj and have independent Editorial Board and Team. 

Vision and Mission

IMHR envisions itself not merely as a repository of academic writing, but as:

  1. A dedicated home for the history of mobility in South Asia
  2. A meeting ground for railway, migration, and Partition historians
  3. A platform bridging archival research and accessible public scholarship
  4. A catalyst for interdisciplinary and cross-border South Asian historical inquiry

The Journal is committed to nurturing early-career scholars, encouraging archivally grounded research, and building a lasting scholarly record of how movement has shaped South Asia's modern history.

By combining academic rigor with accessibility, IMHR aspires to become the leading dedicated scholarly forum for railway, migration, and mobility history in the region.