His passion for teaching started at National Law School of India University (NLSIU) in March 2004 and continues till date with NALSAR University of Law. He left NLSIU at the end of year 2004 to engage himself in research. After completing doctorate, He went on to do his post-doctoral research on ‘The Political Articulation of Water Rights’ in two south Indian states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu between 2007 and 2009 at Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development (CISED), a Centre of excellence promoted by the Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore. After completing post-doctoral research and before joining NALSAR faculty in June 2010, He did some research work as a Visiting Fellow at Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment (ATREE), Bangalore for about one year from May, 2009 to April, 2010 on “Public Participation in Environmental Decision-Making towards Conservation and Protection of Water Resources in the Village Panchayats of Tamil Nadu”. For a very brief period of five and a half months from September 9, 2013 to February 11, 2014, he taught at The Tamil Nadu National Law School, Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu.

He is interested in watching popular Tamil films and has a great liking for the film music compositions of the great Maestro Ilayaraja. He reads largely Tamil short stories and novels.

Qualifications: 

Bachelors (Honors) in Religion and Philosophy

Masters in Sociology

Ph.D in Sociology from Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore

Research: 

Research Interests:

New Social Movements in India, Water Rights, Community rights over Natural Resources, Green Political Theories, Politics of Ethnic identities, Politics of Decentralized governance, Village Communities, Dalit Rights, Law and governance.  Violence and Social Suffering.

Completed research works:

As a Visiting Fellow at Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment (ATREE), Bangalore, he was engaged in a research on “Public Participation in Environmental Decision-Making towards Conservation and Protection of Water Resources in the Village Panchayats of Tamil Nadu”. This study makes an evaluation of public participation in several cases of environmental planning and conservation focusing on how effectively these efforts introduced public values into the decision-making processes of village Panchayats in Tamil Nadu, resolved conflict among stakeholders, and built trust in environmental agencies.

As a Post-Doctoral Research Associate at Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development (CISED), a Centre of excellence promoted by the Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore, he worked on ‘The Political Articulation of Water Rights’ in two south Indian states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. He wrote a Research Working Paper “Water, Left Politics and the Manufactured Dissent: Politics of Political Mobilization against Coca Cola in Gangaikondaan, Tamil Nadu, India” based on the ethnographic materials from Tamil Nadu fieldwork.

As a Research Associate at Centre for the Study of Casteism, Communalism and Law (CSCCL) of NLSIU, he was engaged in the research project on “ the study of Performances of Special Courts in India”, which the CSCCL of NLSIU had taken up for the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India. The study made an attempt to understand the functioning of Special Courts that were set up under the SCs and STs (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. He was involved in deciding the research design for the study. Apart from this, he had personally supervised the data collection in the three Southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Publications: 

• “Replication of Hierarchy: A Subaltern Understanding of Dalit Politics”, 4 Enreca Occasional Paper Series (Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta 1999)

• “Caste Violence and Dalit Consciousness: A Critical Interpretation of Dominance”,Working Paper No. 59 (Institute for Social and Economic Change, 2000)

Courses:

SOCIOLOGY-I: Society, Culture and Law in Sociological Perspectives

SOCIOLOGY-II: Sociology of Law

SEMINAR COURSE (Currently Teaching):  Religion and Secular Theologies: Critical Approaches to the Legal Imagination of the Sacred and Secular in India

SEMINAR COURSES (Taught): Anthropology of Law and Violence; Subaltern Studies: Understanding Hegemony, Dominance and Subordination in Indian Society; Theory and Praxis, Social Movements in India, Caste Politics in India, and Social Conflicts and Conflict Resolution in Indi