Reappraising Modern Indian Thought

“A fine collection of impressive essays dealing with a large array of Indian thinkers
who between them cover more or less the entire range of Indian thought during
this period. With works like this appearing from time to time, there is no excuse
for ignoring the teaching of Indian political thought in Indian or non-Indian
universities.”
—Bhikhu Parekh, Emeritus Professor of Political Philosophy, University of
Westminster, UK & Fellow of the British Academy (FBA)

“This book brings together essays by young scholars, on themes and thinkers,
from modern and more contemporary Indian thought. In doing this it fills,
what may be best described as a void, in contemporary scholarship, which has
systematically neglected these thinkers no matter their conceptual contributions
to the making of the modern Indian nation. Given the vast range of this collection
it will be of interest not only to researchers and scholars of Political Science,
Philosophy and Modern Indian History but also to the general reader.”
—Bindu Puri, Professor & Chairperson, Centre for Philosophy, School of Social
Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (India)

“While progressive writers have dominated the intellectual scene in India for
decades, this book deals (mostly) with under studied cultural-revivalist thinkers.
All of them, except Tagore, Vivekananda and Azad share the same brand of
ethno-religious nationalism, the dominant idiom today in Indian politics. To read
these makers of the Indian intellectual scene under the Raj shows that, at that
time already this brand of nationalism went on a par with social conservatism.”
—Christophe Jaffrelot, Avantha Chair & Professor of Indian Politics and
Sociology, King’s College London & Senior Research Fellow at CERI-Sciences
PO/CNRS, Paris

“An excellent introduction for undergraduates and the lay reader on the many
strands of Indian political thinking. The essays take up a diverse range of political
figures and intellectuals who moved beyond the nationalism-colonialism divide
and allow us to better understand the persistence of hierarchy and violence in
Indian society.”
—Dilip M. Menon, Mellon Chair in Indian Studies & Director, Centre for
Indian Studies in Africa, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
“This book offers readers a competent insight into a rich universe of ideas
and perspectives: the universe of Indian culture during the past two hundred
years. The diverse dimensions of this culture are carefully differentiated and
explored. Thus, one finds chapters on idealist humanism, on political militancy,
on cultural revivalism, and on radical pragmatism. However, in the midst of
diversity one always remains aware of the deeper connectedness or relationship
of ideas. Thus, one comes to realise that, when applied to our global situation.
The Indian universe of perspectives can be a pathway to peace in the world.”
—Fred R. Dallmayr, Professor of Philosophy and Political Science, University of
Notre Dame, USA

“This book offers assessments of a remarkably broad range of Indian political

thinkers, who represent diverse perspectives on culture, society and politics. It
usefully places them within their historical contexts which are not always fully
visible in such studies. Readers will gain an appreciation of the marked contrasts
and debates between these thinkers, and the book will stimulate further debates
in a changing India.”
—James Manor, Emeritus Professor of Commonwealth Studies, School of
Advanced Study, University of London

“The volume is a rich collection of essays on Modern Political Thought woven

around Indian thinkers and their socio-political ideas. Divided into several themes
and issues, the essays collectively, provide a comprehensive overview of the
making of modern India. It is lucidly written and well researched and will
be of interest to students and scholars working on the subject.”
—Pampa Mukherjee, Professor, Department of Political Science, Panjab
University, Chandigarh (India)

“It is an interesting collection of essays that discuss a wide range of thinkers

and themes from across the political spectrum. The book thus provides a broad
discussion of the intellectual origins of the pluralist political culture of India that
developed during the colonial period. It will certainly be useful to students of
politics and history, and will be of interest to general readers.”
—Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, Professor, Victoria University of Wellington, New
Zealand & Director, New Zealand India Research Institute

“The book is a scholarly contribution in the field of Indian Political Thought.

It covers some very contemporary thinkers who had their own vision of India.
There is broad coverage of themes to offer a holistic site for conceptual analysis.
It will be immensely helpful to students and to the teaching community.”
—Shashikant Pandey, Professor & Head, Department of Political Science,
Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar (Central) University, Lucknow (India)
 Ankit Tomar · Suratha Kumar Malik
Editors

Reappraising Modern
Indian Thought
Themes and Thinkers
Editors
Ankit Tomar Suratha Kumar Malik
Lakshmibai College Department of Political Science
University of Delhi Vidyasagar University
New Delhi, Delhi, India Midnapore, West Bengal, India

ISBN 978-981-19-1414-0 ISBN 978-981-19-1415-7 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-1415-7

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022
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microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.
in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such
names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for
general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and informa-
tion in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither
the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with
respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been
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 This Work
Is
Dedicated To
Our Teachers
 Foreword

Political thought has since long been an area of considerable inquisitive-

ness for scholars of social philosophy throughout the world. Enormous
amount of literature is available on various streams of political thought
which originated and grew in Greek, Roman and English political
communities over two thousand years. A keen student of political science
would evidently find some essential linkages between these three main
traditions of Western political thought. The preponderance of this stream
in our classrooms and syllabi of Political Science throughout the globe
somehow led us to unwittingly submit to the fallacy of the thesis of
political thinking locating its origin in Greek societies. Colonisation of
many nations in various continents by the British, Portuguese and other
European imperialists did not provide any space of indigenous thinkers
to be placed forward in this area and this resulted in gross failure of
otherwise age-old societies in exploring sustaining and substantiating their
own traditions of systematic thinking and intellectual endeavours in any
meaningful field of human activity. Interestingly, Indian academia has also
been substantially influenced by this menace. For quite a long time, any
innocuous indication of Indian contribution to socio-political thinking
was summarily dismissed with sufficient disdain.
The advent of Indian national movement could eventually witness a
visible growth of reasonably articulate stream of scholarly works on Indian
tradition of political thinking. Some of these exceptionally great academic

vii
viii FOREWORD

pursuits managed to attract inadvertent attention of academic communi-

ties of the West, which have, till today, been considered as the highest
apostles of academic excellence and which have, as a result, attained an
unquestioned authority of providing intellectual recognition (or rejection
too) to the research exercises of the rest of the world. However, many of
these highly systematic and authentic analytical presentations by Indian
scholars, trained and groomed in the Western educational institutions,
were calculatively termed as ‘nationalistic writings’ purporting to high-
light the Indian academic tradition in a greatly appreciative colour, so
as to emphasise upon the quest for independence from colonial powers.
This was, in fact, considered to be attempts to justify and legitimise the
demands of self-rule.
Unfortunately, after the independence, this tradition of exploring the
Indian past with a view to understand socio-political thinking of our
own philosophers and seers got abruptly discontinued. After the sixties,
another stream of writings on Indian political systems of ancient India
was initiated by some scholars who were bent upon establishing ‘class-
struggle’ in each and every sphere of Indian life from ancient to present.
These analysts presented Indian political thinking in a pre-decided manner
to find conflicts, clashes, exclusion, discrimination and disempowerment
of the different ‘classes’ by the ‘powers’ that be. This trend played
havoc with academic understanding of Indian minds since the absolute
ignorance of our own tradition of socio-political ideas was less harmful
than the deliberate picturisation of the yesteryears as the ‘history of
violent class-struggles’. The disservice done by these, strangely termed
as ‘liberal’, scholars to the cause of objective and impartial and unbiased
academic researches has been immense and got tremendous impact on the
trajectory of intellectual pursuits and higher learning in and about India.
In this background, it is highly imperative that efforts to under-
stand and examine Indian political thought be encouraged at all levels.
Although the present volume has concentrated only on the modern
Indian thought and proclaims of reappraising the Ideal-Humanist,
Militant-Extremist, Cultural-Revivalist and Radical-Pragmatist traditions
only, yet the significance of the present work lies in the fact that it
attempts to provide an overview of the major political thinkers of modern
India.
 FOREWORD ix

Many of the contributors of this work have long been my friends and
well-wishers. I congratulate the editors and the contributors of the book
for their efforts.

Sanjeev Kumar Sharma

Vice-Chancellor
Mahatma Gandhi Central University
Motihari, Bihar, India
 Preface and Acknowledgements

Venturing for editing a book can be a fascinating and pleasurable activity

but at the same time it is a taxing and challenging task also especially
when one is working in the field of socio-political thought of various
thinkers of Indian sub-continent. It is taxing, because one is constantly
evaluating one’s own abilities to come up with a product that should be
welcome in the world of academia. And it is challenging because unlike
the Western Political Thought where we consider political philosophers
like Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes and Marx purely as political
philosophers, in Indian Thought, we generally associate Indian thinkers,
particularly modern Indian thinkers either with a particular ideology or
a party or organisation. For example, if one is writing a chapter on the
political or economic ideas of Nehru, then he/she will be consider as
supporter of Congress party whereas if someone is writing on Savarkar or
Deendayal then we start labelling him/her as an activist or campaigner of
Right-wing ideology. Let takes an another example, suppose a person is
writing or working on the ideas of Karl Marx or Bakunin so does it mean
that he or she is a Marxist or anarchist? But there is a problem which
we generally face when tries to study or explore the ideas of modern
Indian thinkers and it is because of such kind of mindset, we have not
learnt anything from our rich traditions of modern Indian thought. In
this context, we have made a serious attempt to change the mindset so
that we can think ‘out of the box’.

xi
xii PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Second, we also wish to make it very clear that our present work is not
a work of selective thinkers; in fact, it is a continuation of another book
on modern Indian thought entitled Revisiting Modern Indian Thought:
Themes and Perspectives edited by Suratha Kumar Malik and Ankit Tomar
which includes rest of the thinkers of modern India that we were not able
to incorporate in this book. The continuation volume has been published
by Routledge global edition in 2021, where the readers will find the
continuation of the ideas of other great thinkers of modern India under
different thematic sections.
This book has evolved over a period of three years and is the result
of continuous discussions, debates and conversations between the editors
regarding the pedagogy of modern Indian thought. Our interest in the
Indian philosophy combined with our engagement with teaching modern
Indian thought in classroom stimulated us to think of ways to inte-
grate our concerns for preparing the text-cum reference book on modern
Indian thought which is a crying need not only for the students of Polit-
ical Science, History, Sociology and Philosophy, but also for the general
readers at large. The book is also an attempt to explore the ideas and
thought of modern Indian thinkers by revealing our indigenous knowl-
edge system, culture, civilisation and ideals of the freedom movement
in one way, and withering away from ‘Eurocentrism’ which posits Euro-
pean history and values as ‘normal’ and ‘superior’ to others, thereby
helping to produce and justify Europe’s dominant position within the
global capitalist system and also in the epistemic world in another way.
The contributors of this volume are expert in their fields, and they analyse
the ideas of modern Indian thinkers from different vantage points. Every
chapter of this book had a dual mandate—it needed to be ‘student
friendly’ in terms of its handling of the theme and, at the same time,
would bear each author’s independent opinion on every issue.
The present compendium is divided into four thematic sections: Ideal-
Humanist, Militant-Extremist, Cultural-Revivalist and Radical-Pragmatist
thought. The first section of the book deals with the ideas and
contributions of Rabindranath Tagore, Madan Mohan Malaviya, Swami
Vivekananda, Aurobindo Ghose and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad to the
annals of modern Indian thought and all of them directly and indirectly
remained idealist and humanist in their thought and action. The chap-
ters on such thinkers not only talks about their lives and times, but
also discusses and examines the contributions of those to contemporary
period. The second section of the book reflects the thought process and
 PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xiii

strategies of militant-Extremists like Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra

Pal and Lala Lajpat Rai. In contrast to the Moderate thinkers of the Indian
National Congress who pursued a policy of reconciliation, the Extrem-
ists demanded time bound programmes and policies harming the British
interests in India through direct actions. The third section of the book
deals about the cultural revivalists which includes Bankim Chandra Chat-
topadhyay, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar and
Deendayal Upadhyaya who tried to revive India’s culture and glorious
past along with the freedom movement. All of them believed that Indian
culture and tradition is superior to Western materialism and had tried to
arise national consciousness among the mass through revival of Indian
tradition and culture and endeavoured to reconstruct the nation. They
linked India’s future essentially to the resurgence of native culture, along-
side the struggle for political liberation from the colonial rule. In the
fourth and the last section, the emergence and evolution of radical-
pragmatist thought of Syed Ahmed Khan and Muhammad Iqbal have
been discussed at length.
In writing the book, a number of people have directly and indirectly
contributed to whom we remain indebted. We are happy to be associ-
ated with the Palgrave Macmillan (part of Springer Nature Group) book
project. We are thankful to the Palgrave Macmillan team especially to
Sandeep Kaur, Shreenidhi Natarajan, Misao Taguchi, Aurelia Heumader,
Chitra Gopalraj and others, without their support and cooperation, the
project would not have taken off within stipulated deadlines and the
manuscript would not have reached the press without their initiative and
personal care. We are also indebted to the anonymous reviewers for their
valuable comments and suggestions in making this work meticulous and
worth reading.
We would like to extend our appreciation to a number of people who
made this project possible through their invaluable support and guid-
ance. We are thankful to the anonymous reviewers of the manuscript
for their comments, which we strived to incorporate to the best of our
abilities. Their suggestions were quite insightful and helped in revising
the content of the volume. We are grateful to Prof. Sanjeev Kumar
Sharma, Vice-Chancellor of Mahatma Gandhi Central University, Bihar
and General Secretary and Treasurer, Indian Political Science Associa-
tion (IPSA) to have kindly consented to write the ‘foreword’ for the
book. We are indebted to Prof. Narender Kumar, Chairperson, Centre
for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) for writing
xiv PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

the introductory chapter of the book. We are indebted to Professor

Bhikhu Parekh, Professor Bindu Puri, Professor Christophe Jaffrelot,
Professor Dilip M. Menon, Professor Fred R. Dallmayr, Professor James
Manor, Professor Pampa Mukherjee, Professor Sekhar Bandyopadhyay
and Professor Shashikant Pandey for writing the endorsements for this
compendium.
We take this opportunity to congratulate and thanks to all the contrib-
utors who have contributed their valuable piece and cooperate during
the whole process of the production of this book. We are thankful to all
of them especially to the senior academicians. We are thankful to our
students, who stimulate us with their conversations, ideas and critical
queries in the classroom and outside, in making this work worthwhile.
If they find the book useful and intellectually provocative, we will have
achieved what we are looking for. Finally, we fondly acknowledge the
unflinching support and contribution of our families without which it
would not have been possible for us to concentrate on our academic
pursuits of which the latest product comes in the form of the present
book.
As far our knowledge is concerned, the book does not use any third
party materials and there is no funding interest associated with this book.

New Delhi, India Ankit Tomar

Midnapore, India Suratha Kumar Malik
 Contents

1 Introduction 1
Narender Kumar

Part I Ideal–Humanist Thought

2 Rabindranath Tagore 19
Tridib Chakraborti
3 Madan Mohan Malaviya 55
Suratha Kumar Malik
4 Swami Vivekananda 73
Projit Kumar Palit
5 Sri Aurobindo Ghose 101
Budh Bahadur Lama
6 Maulana Abul Kalam Azad 125
M. J. Vinod

Part II Militant–Extremist Thought

7 Bal Gangadhar Tilak 147
Sangeeta
8 Bipin Chandra Pal 169
Ashu J

xv
xvi CONTENTS

9 Lala Lajpat Rai 203

Urmil Vats

Part III Cultural–Revivalist Thought

10 Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay 215
Sourav Naskar
11 Vinayak Damodar Savarkar 237
Jajneswar Sethi
12 Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar 251
Pramod Kumar Ray and Prabira Sethy
13 Deendayal Upadhyaya 277
Ankit Tomar

Part IV Radical–Pragmatist Thought

14 Syed Ahmed Khan 293
M. Mohibul Haque and Khurram
15 Muhammad Iqbal 317
Islam Ali

Index 347
 Notes on Contributors

Ali Islam is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science,

Zakir Husain Delhi College (Evening), University of Delhi. He did his
M.A. M.Phil. and Ph.D. from University of Delhi. He has published two
books: Contemporary Africa: Issues and Concerns (ed. 2011) and Bhar-
tiya Rajnitik Chintan: Sankalpnayeen Evam Vicharak (ed. 2012). He has
also published various articles in national and international journals. His
areas of interest include African Politics, Political Philosophy, Gender and
Contemporary Studies.
Chakraborti Tridib is a Former Professor in the Department of Interna-
tional Relations, Jadavpur University, Kolkata (India) and former ICCR
Chair Professor in Indian Studies and Visiting Professor at Dublin City
University, Ireland. He is also Former Dean and currently Emeritus
Professor of the School of Social Sciences, Adamas University, Barasat,
India. He is an expert in South Asian, Southeast Asian and Asia-Pacific
Affairs, Indian Political Thought, Foreign Policy and Strategic Studies.
J Ashu is currently working as an Academic Counsellor at IGNOU
Centre, Sri Aurobindo College, University of Delhi and Senior Research
Associate at Department of Education in Social Sciences, NCERT, Delhi.
He has completed his M.A., M.Phil. and pursuing Ph.D. in History with
a major in Ancient History from Department of History, University of
Delhi. He has published two books and many articles related to his

xvii
xviii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

specialisation. He is also voluntarily serving as President of Asiatic Society

for Social Science Research, Delhi.
Khurram is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science,
AMU Aligarh. His area of specialisation is Political Theory and Consti-
tution of India. He has authored a book on Political Development and
published research papers/articles on political themes. He has presented
papers in national and international seminars in India and abroad.
Kumar Narender is a Professor & Chairperson in Centre for Political
Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has experi-
ence of teaching and research for 18 years in various Central Univer-
sities including University of Delhi, Jamia Millia Islamia, Babasaheb
Bhimrao Ambedkar University (Lucknow). He has five books to his
credit which include Sukhadeo Thorat and Narender Kumar (ed.) B.
R. Ambedkar: Perspective on Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policies, New
Delhi: Oxford University Press (Paperback edition 2009), Sukhadeo
Thorat and Narender Kumar (ed.) In Search of Inclusive Policy: Addressing
Graded Inequality, Jaipur: Rawat Publications (2008), Narender Kumar
and Manor Rai Dalit Leadership in Panchayats: A Comparative Study of
Four States, Jaipur: Rawat Publications (2006), Narender Kumar Dalit
Policies, Politics and Parliament, New Delhi: Shipra Publishers (2004),
Narender Kumar Scheduled Castes and Panchayat Elections in Haryana,
New Delhi: Indian Social Institute (2001). He has also been working
on Family/Dynasty Politics in Haryana under a collaborative interna-
tional project, where academic institutions, i.e. King’s College London;
London School of Economics from Britain; and CERI-Sciences PO, Paris
from France were partners. He was awarded Indo-French Social Scien-
tist Fellowship in 2011 and studied the problems of Roma, a minority
and Gypsy community in France. He has also completed two major
research projects awarded by University Grants Commission and Indian
Council for Social Science Research. He has published another book on
Ambedkar and Democracy from Oxford University Press. His areas of
interest include Political Institutions, Political Process and Public Policy
with special reference to marginalised groups.
Lama Budh Bahadur is an Assistant Professor in the Department of
Political Science, Sikkim Central University. He was a Former Assistant
Professor in the Department of Political Science with Rural Adminis-
tration, Vidyasagar University. He has guided many M. Phil. Students
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xix

on various fields of research and his publications include 12 arti-

cles and chapters in different edited books and journals. He has also
invited as resource person and presented paper in 19 international and
national seminars/conferences across the country. His areas of interest
include India-Nepal Relations, Local Governance, Political Thought,
Social Movements, Political Theory and Indian Politics.
Malik Suratha Kumar is an Assistant Professor and Teacher-in-Charge
in the Department of Political Science, Vidyasagar University. He holds
an M.A. and M.Phil. in Political Science from the Centre for Political
Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He obtains his Ph.D.
degree from Vidyasagar University under the supervision of Prof. Tarun
Kumar Banerji (Former Professor of Political Science and Director of
Gandhian Studies Centre, Vidyasagar University and National Fellow,
ICSSR, New Delhi). In his credit, he has published four books (sole
authored and co-edited) and twenty research articles and chapters in
different national and international books and journals including Sage,
Springer and Routledge, etc. He was invited as resource person, guest
of honour and chief guest to different colleges and universities and
has also presented papers in more than 40 international and national
conferences/seminars including Imperial College London, UK, Linton
University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Dubai. He has organised 5 inter-
national and national seminars/conferences in the capacity of convener
and organising secretary sponsored by UGC, New Delhi and NHRC,
New Delhi. His areas of interest include Indian political thought and
philosophy, tribal politics and issues, dalit identity, politics and issues and
International Politics. Under his supervision, 15 M.Phil. Scholars have
been awarded their degree. He has completed UGC Major research
project on Land Alienation and Politics of Tribal Exploitation: A Study of
Koraput District of Odisha and has been awarded with Nirman Founda-
tion Fellowship (Lord Bhikhu Parekh endowment) during his M.A., UGC
Junior Research Fellowship during M.Phil. and the Vivekananda Excel-
lence Award in 2019 (Presented by Seva Youth Guild, Kolkata affiliated
to NYKS, Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs Department, Government
of India). Since last 6 years, he is associated with National Service Scheme,
as the Programme Officer and awarded the best NSS Programme Officer
in the state for the year 2019-20 by the Ministry of Higher Education,
Government of West Bengal. He is also involved in social service for the
xx NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

downtrodden and is the adviser of Youth Mass of Kanpada (Bhadrak,

Odisha).
Mohibul Haque M. is a Professor in the Department of Political
Science of Aligarh Muslim University, India. His areas of interest are:
International Politics, Indian Polity, Minority Rights, Human Rights,
Terrorism, Globalisation and Political Islam. He is a prolific writer and
has contributed several articles, research papers and chapters in the edited
books on socio-political issues of national and international importance.
He has also authored a book titled International Terrorism and Violence:
A Human Rights Perspective. He has presented papers in national and
international seminars/conferences in India and abroad. He has been
participating in discussions on television channels (national and interna-
tional) and other public fora as panellist, expert and discussant. Dr. M.
Mohibul Haque is also the recipient of the President of India Dr. Shankar
Dayal Sharma Gold Medal for Excellence.
Naskar Sourav is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at
Vidyasagar University, West Bengal. He has published many research arti-
cles/books related to Social History. His areas of interest include Defence
and Strategic Studies, Peace and Conflict Studies, Diplomatic History of
World, Contemporary World and Cultural History of Indian Diaspora.
Palit Projit Kumar is a Professor in the Department of History at Assam
University, Assam. He has authored 8 books and published many research
articles/chapters in edited books and journals. He is also the Director,
Centre for Indological Studies, Department of History, Assam University,
Silchar (India).
Ray Pramod Kumar is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Polit-
ical Science at L. B. College, Angalo, Jajpur, Odisha. He has completed
his M.A. in Political Science from Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal
Nehru University, New Delhi, M.Phil. in Political Science (International
Relations and Strategic Studies) from Central University of Hyderabad,
Hyderabad and Ph.D. from Utkal University, Odisha. Dr. Ray has
published a number of research articles and chapters in different jour-
nals and edited books respectively to his credit. He has presented a
number of research papers in various national and international confer-
ences; delivered invited lectures and acted as resource person in various
conferences. Besides, he was often invited as a panellist for various Odia
news channel discussions on electoral politics and other socio-economic
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xxi

and political issues. He has also worked in a number of national and

international Research Projects and currently the Project Director in an
ICSSR funded Major Research Project. Dr. Ray has been working as an
approved councilor at IGNOU Regional Centre, Bhubaneswar Odisha for
Political Science and Public Administration PG Courses. He has trans-
lated IGNOU BDP Political Science study materials from English to
Odia. Presently, he has been working as an Associate Editor in a national
peer reviewed Journal named Asiatic Society for Social Science Research
published from New Delhi.
Sangeeta is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science,
Shaheed Bhagat Singh College (Morning), University of Delhi. She has
done M.A., M.Phil. and Ph.D. in Political Science from University of
Delhi. She has more than 11 years of experience in teaching to undergrad-
uate students in this college. She has published 1 book and 12 articles in
different edited books published by reputed publishers. She has presented
research papers in several seminars (both national and international) in
different colleges of University of Delhi.
Sethi Jajneswar is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Polit-
ical Science at Ravenshaw University, Odisha. He has completed his
M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D. and Post-Doctorate from Jawaharlal Nehru Univer-
sity, New Delhi. He has presented his papers in different seminars and
published his research articles in different journals and books.
Sethy Prabira is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Polit-
ical Science at Maharaja Agrasen College, University of Delhi. He has
published chapters in different journals and books including Sage and
other publishers and has presented papers in different international and
national seminars.
Tomar Ankit teaches Political Science at Lakshmibai College, Univer-
sity of Delhi. He holds an M.A. in Political Science from University of
Delhi and an M.Phil. in International Politics from School of Interna-
tional Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is currently
on the verge of submitting his Ph.D. to the Centre for International Poli-
tics, Organization and Disarmament (CIPOD), School of International
Studies (SIS), Jawaharlal Nehru University. He has contributed various
chapters and research articles in different national and international edited
and co-edited books, journals and to several reputed institutions of
India including Institute of Life Long Learning, University of Delhi. He
xxii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

has also participated and invited as resource person in different semi-

nars, conferences, workshops and training programmes at national and
international level. His areas of interest include Indian and Western
Political Philosophy, Theories of International Relations, Non-Western
International Relations Thinking and Global Political Economy.
Vats Urmil is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political
Science, Shyama Prasad Mukherji College, University of Delhi. She has a
Ph.D. in the subject from University of Kurukshetra. She has more than
10 years of experience of teaching undergraduate students of Political
Science. Her research articles have appeared in various national and inter-
national journals. She has also associated with many non-governmental
organisations. Her areas of interest include Political Theory, Political
Philosophy and Human Rights.
Vinod M. J. is a Former Professor in the Department of Political Science
at Bangalore University, Bangalore. He has thirty years of teaching
and research experience in the field. He has been a Salzburg Fellow,
Ford Foundation Fellow, Swiss Foreign Ministry Fellow to the Graduate
School of International Studies and a Visiting Fellow at the Henry L.
Stimson Centre, Washington, DC. He has written many monographs and
published widely in academic journals from India and abroad. Professor
Vinod has authored/co-authored four books titled Contemporary Polit-
ical Theory (2013), Security Challenges in the Asia-Pacific Region: The
Taiwan Factor (2009), India’s Foreign Policy in the 21st Century: Chal-
lenges and Opportunities (2006) and United States Foreign Policy Towards
India: A Study of the American Approach (1999). He has recently
completed a major research project with the UGC on ‘Migrations into
Bangalore City: A Study of Its Social, Economic and Political Impli-
cations’. His research expertise includes India-United States Relations,
South Asian Security Research, Political Theory and Indian Political
Thought.