The National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bengaluru, Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia, Brown University, USA and Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS), Chennai are jointly organising a Workshop on ‘State, Citizenship and Mobilisations in Contemporary India’ on August 8th-9th, 2026 at NLSIU, Bengaluru.

About the workshop

Scholars working on themes of state, citizenship and mobilisations will share ongoing research at this two-day workshop at NLSIU, Bengaluru. The workshop will be organized around five panels over two days with three papers and a discussant assigned to each. Each presenter will have up to 20 minutes to present their work. We will then devote about 15 minutes for comments from the discussant and Q&A from other participants.

India has witnessed considerable upheaval in the relationship between state institutions, citizenship, and collective action in recent times. Political, economic, and social changes over the past three decades have reshaped the ways in which power is organized, identity and belonging is negotiated, and political claims are articulated. Understanding these developments requires attention to formal institutions and the law and to the diverse social forces that contest and reconfigure them. The workshop will feature panels across five broad themes: changing nature of governance and law, citizenship as a contested and evolving terrain, movements and identities, political economy of development, recent mobilisations and youth unrest rooted in the politics of inequality.

Workshop Agenda

Day 1, 8th August (Saturday)

10:00–10:30 AM | Opening Remarks
Sudhir Krishnaswamy (NLSIU) Suresh Babu (MIDS), Patrick Heller (Brown University)

10:30-12:30 PM | Panel 1: Governance and Citizenship
Discussant: Sudhir Krishnaswamy

Poulami Roychowdhury, Brown University
Mayur Suresh, SOAS/NLSIU
R Vijayamba and Prajwal Nagesh, NLSIU and MIDS
Darshana Mitra and Meenakshi Ramkumar, NLSIU

12:30–1:30 PM | Lunch

1:30–3:30 PM | Panel 2: Movements and Identities
Discussant: Patrick Heller, Brown University

Ankita Pandey, O.P. Jindal Global University
Dayal Paleri, NLSIU
Nikhil Kothakota and Isha Ahlawat, NLSIU
Shireen Azam, NLSIU

3:30-3:45 | Tea

3:45–5:45 PM | Panel 1: Inequality and Mobilization
Discussant: Ashutosh Varshney, Brown University

Sarthak Bagchi, Ahmedabad University
Yamini Aiyar, Brown University
Kalaiyarasan, MIDS
Roshan Kishore, Hindustan Times

7:30 PM | Off-campus dinner

Day 2, 9th August (Sunday)

10:30 AM–12:30 PM | Panel 4: Governance and Law
Discussant: Suraj Jacob, CDS

Prerna Singh, Brown University
Rishabh Kachhroo, Affiliate Researcher, JSW Centre for the Future of Law, National Law School of India University
Anindita Adhikari and Meenakshi Ramkumar, NLSIU
Manpreet Singh Dhillon, NLSIU

12:30 PM-1:30 PM | Lunch

1:30 PM–3:30 PM | Panel 5: Political Economy
Discussant: Suresh Babu, MIDS

Anush Kapadia, IIT Bombay
Srishty Yadav, APU
Abhishek Shaw, APU
Angarika Rakshit, IIIT Hyderabad

About the organisers

The workshop is being jointly organised by the National Law School of India University (Bengaluru), the Saxena Centre for Contemporary South Asia at Brown University (USA) and the Madras Institute of Development Studies (Chennai).

The faculty coordinators for the workshop are:

At NLSIU

Anindita Adhikari
Siddharth Swaminathan

At the Saxena Centre for Contemporary South Asia, Brown University

Patrick Heller
Prerna Singh
Poulami Roychowdhury

At Madras Institute of Development Studies

A Kalaiyarasan