Sushmita Nath

Sushmita Nath is a political theorist with a keen interest in themes related to modern social and political theories of empire, decolonisation, and post-colonial democracy. With a focus on modern and contemporary India, her research has engaged with debates on secularism and secularity, religion and law, democracy and populism. She is particularly interested in studying these themes in relation to the still developing field of comparative political theory and the currently flourishing field of global history. Dr Nath’s first monograph, The Secular Imaginary: Gandhi, Nehru and the Idea(s) of India, sought to study ostensibly Western concepts, such as secularism, secularisation and secularity, in a non-Western society like India without assuming them to be simply derivative of Western modular forms or as colonial legacies. She has published on themes related to religion and secularity, and Indian political thought in journals like Studies in Religion, ASIEN, and South Asia Chronicle. She has a PhD in political science from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and has received doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships from Freie Universität, Berlin, Leipzig University, and Humboldt University, Berlin.