India, Feb. 20 -- Shailaja Paik's Wikipedia page does not mention that she grew up in the slums around Pune. It does mention that she is the winner of the 2024 MacArthur "genius" grant. Shailaja is a historian of modern India who focuses on the intersections of class, sexuality and caste. "I wanted to connect with women who I wanted to study," says Shailaja in the MacArthur Foundation's Youtube channel. "But to write and to understand the stories of the marginalized, the excluded, you need a different method."

The same could be said of the organisation that awarded her this hefty $800,000 grant paid out over five years. In the early years after its institution in 1981, the MacArthur grants were heavily skewed in favour of white men. A st...