Education

• Integrated Master’s in Political Science from the University of Hyderabad
• PhD in Political Science from the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras

Profile

Dr Dayal Paleri is a political scientist who has been at NLSIU since July 2024. With an interdisciplinary background spanning Political Science, Sociology, and Religious Studies, he combines ethnographic methods with political theory to study the relationship between religion and politics beyond its institutional and normative forms. His research and teaching interests include Religion and Politics, the Indian Political Process, Modern Political Theory and Thought, Political Sociology of Religion and Non-Religion, State and Democracy, and Research Methods.

He received his PhD from the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at IIT Madras, an Integrated Master’s in Political Science from the University of Hyderabad, and was a Commonwealth Split-Site Fellow at the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Edinburgh. He is also a recipient of the Institute Research Award for Excellence in PhD Research at IIT Madras.

Publications

• Dayal Paleri and Santhosh R. (2023). ‘Elections can wait!’ The politics of constructing a ‘Hindu atmosphere’ in Kerala, South India. Modern Asian Studies, 57(6):2067-2099 (Cambridge University Press)
• Dayal Paleri. (2023). Crisis as Opportunity: The Politics of ‘Seva’ and the Hindu Nationalist Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Kerala, South India. Religions (MDPI), 14 (6), 799.
• R Santhosh and Dayal Paleri. (2021). Ethnicization of religion in practice? Recasting competing communal mobilizations in coastal Karnataka, South India. Ethnicities (Sage Publications) 21(3), 563–588.
• R Santhosh and Dayal Paleri. (2021). Crisis of Secularism and Changing Contours of Minority Politics in India: Lessons from the Analysis of a Muslim Political Organization. Asian Survey (University of California Press) 61 (6), 999-1027.

• Dayal Paleri. (2024). Crisis as Opportunity: Exploring the Hindu Nationalist Politics of ‘Seva’ During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Kerala, South India. In Nissim Mannathukkaren (ed) Hindu Nationalism in South India: The Rise of Saffron in Kerala. London: Routledge.

Book Reviews:

• Dayal Paleri. (2022). The New Hindutva and Its Contradictions, Economic and Political Weekly, 57 (19), 26-18.
• Dayal Paleri (2022) Hindutva Growth Story. The Wire. 21 August 2022.

Popular Writings: 

• Dayal Paleri. (2025). This election will write the future of Kerala’s bipolar politics, Indian Express, March 30, 2026
• Dayal Paleri. (2025). Kerala’s Extreme Poverty-Free Claim And The Political Possibility of Positive Freedom, Outlook, November 12, 2025
• Dayal Paleri. (2025). Left’s engagement with Sabarimala in Kerala is not opportunism, it is part of a longer attempt to democratise religion, The Indian Express, October 15, 2025
• Dayal Paleri. (2025).  Is Onam a Hindu festival? The moral imagination that underpins its secular appeal, The Indian Express, September 5, 2025
• Dayal Paleri, Kunal Nath Shahdeo. (2025). Kerala vs Chhattisgarh: Nun arrests expose how BJP deals with two kinds of Christians, The Indian Express, 31 July, 2025
• Dayal Paleri, Sudheesh R C. (2025). Why no one is talking about counting caste in Kerala, The Indian Express, 13 June 2025.
• Dayal Paleri. (2022). Hindu Nationalism and the Politics of Cultural Citizenship, Contemporary Religion in Historical Perspective, 8 December 2022.