Daniel Waqar (he/him/his) is a doctoral candidate in the History Department at Tufts University. His doctoral dissertation and book project examine the legal and social history of “unlawful assembly” laws across (post)colonial South Asia. 

His research explores the connected nature of these antidemocratic laws, which sought to criminalize small gatherings of people in public spaces as “riots.” This includes the infamous colonial-era “Section 144” of the Criminal Procedure Codes of Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan, respectively. Even after independence in 1947, these laws remained as quasi-martial rule across domains of religious practice, public health, and political and labor mobilization across South Asia.

His historical research reveals how this seemingly temporary emergency law has become a permanent part of how states in South Asia govern public crowds and commercial life despite significant public resistance. He examines a multi-sited historical archive of court cases, intelligence records, police files, government gazettes, as well as poems and artistic productions from across India, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. His research has been supported by the American Institute of Bangladesh Studies and the American Institute of Pakistan Studies, and his most recent work has been published in Marg magazine’s June 2026 issue on “Street Art.”

He was recently named an Emerging Scholar by the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation for his research on a “salient aspect of violence.” He received his MPhil in Modern South Asian Studies from the University of Oxford, where he served as Managing Editor of the St Antony’s International Review, the only graduate journal of international affairs at Oxford. He received his BA in History summa cum laude from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), where he was awarded a Harry S. Truman Scholarship for public service. He served as the undergraduate commencement speaker for his graduating class at UNLV.