Directory of Research and Expertise

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Research Summary and Profile

Research interests:

Civil Rights, Digitisation, Education, Gender studies, Globalization & Development, Human rights, International Relations, Law, Local Government, Philosophy, Political Institutions, Politics, Social Sciences

Regions:

Asia, Middle East, United Kingdom

Summary of research interests and expertise:

AI, Caste & Ethnic Inequalities, Representation, Comparative Perspectives, Crime & Politics, Election, Human Rights, International Relations, Judicial Politics, Political & Legal Theory, Social Policy, Social & Climate Justice, Global South Politics, and Research Methods.

Project summary relevant to Fellowship:

Worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate (April to September 2026) on a UKRI-funded project, PLURALIST AGREEMENT ON CONSTITUTIONAL TRANSFORMATION (PACT), at the Department of Politics & International Relations, SOAS, University of London. The project examines people's participation in the constitution making of India. 

Publication Details

Related publications/articles:

Date	Details
18-May-2026	Reproduction of caste inequality and anti-caste resistance among the Indian diaspora in the United Kingdom Journal articles This article examines the reproduction of caste and the emergence of anti-caste resistance among the Indian diaspora in the United Kingdom. While existing scholarship has analysed caste in the diaspora largely through frameworks of cultural continuity and tradition, it has paid limited attention to how resistance against caste simultaneously reshapes its reproduction. Drawing on qualitative research that combines ethnography, participant observation and in-depth interviews conducted across multiple UK cities, the study foregrounds Dalit perspectives to conceptualize caste as power, humiliation and lived experience. The findings demonstrate that caste is reproduced through socio-religious institutions, endogamy, dietary practices, community organizations and informal caste-based networks, resulting in discrimination, exclusion and humiliation in religious spaces and workplaces. These practices have generated sustained anti-caste resistance in the form of religious, sociopolitical and student-led organizations. The article demonstrates that anti-caste resistance not only challenges caste hierarchies but also contributes to the emergence of new modes of institutional and cultural reproduction, including the creation of independent religious and organizational spaces within the diaspora. By analysing caste reproduction and resistance as interconnected processes, it advances diaspora and caste scholarship, demonstrating how caste persists, mutates and is contested within a liberal multicultural context, such as the United Kingdom.
01-Dec-2024	Constitutionalism, Social Justice, and Social Contract: Unpacking the Debate on Scheduled Caste Reservation for Christian and Muslim Dalits Journal articles This article examines the constitutional, historical, and political debates surrounding the demand for extending Scheduled Caste (SC) status to Christian and Muslim Dalits in India. Drawing on Constituent Assembly Debates, archival materials, judicial decisions, government affidavits, petitions, and my previous scholarship, it challenges the claim that SC reservation was originally conceived as religion-neutral. The article argues that SC reservation emerged as a specific pre-constitutional agreement rooted in the Poona Pact and designed to address the historical injustice of untouchability within Hindu society. Its provisions were subsequently extended to Sikh and Buddhist converts under particular historical and political circumstances but did not encompass Christian and Muslim communities. Examining the arguments advanced by proponents and opponents of inclusion, the article demonstrates that competing interpretations of secularism, equality, social justice, and minority rights lie at the heart of the controversy. It further contends that the contemporary demand for inclusion reflects broader transformations in Indian politics shaped by the dynamics of Mandal, Mandir, Market, and Minority politics, as well as changing judicial approaches to reservation. The article concludes that the debate is not only a question of constitutional interpretation but also concerns the nature of India’s social contract, the purpose of affirmative action, and the future of group-based rights in a plural democracy.
11-May-2023	Exclusion of Pasmanda Muslims and Dalit Christians from the Scheduled Caste Quota Journal articles Based on a re-reading of the Indian Constituent Assembly Debates in light of subsequent developments, this article provides new insights about the extent to which the Indian constitution allows affirmative action for redressing historical disadvantages and empowering marginalised communities. Since the post-colonial Indian state introduced the criterion of religion in the lists of Scheduled Castes (SCs), this sparked suspicions of efforts to prevent conversions, further augmenting India’s Hindu majority. The article re-examines such claims in light of the Indian Constituent Assembly Debates and subsequent Government Orders for notifying/modifying SCs. It argues that the list of SCs was never envisioned as religion-neutral, so that the exclusion of Pasmanda Muslims and Dalit Christians from the SCs is not a communal afterthought, while religion has all along not been the only or main criterion for affirmative action policies.

Research Projects & Supervisions

Research projects:

Details

Ethnic Discrimination in the Indian Civil Service Examination Funded by the Social Policy Association (SPA) Early Career Small Research Grant for this project seeks to examine how caste-based discrimination operates in the recruitment of India’s civil service examination, as a result of which candidates belonging to historically marginalised communities (Dalits and Tribes) receive lower marks in its interview.

Available for doctoral supervision: Yes

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