A Multi-Disciplinary
Online Certificate Programme
Exclusive Experience by Ashoka University
– Open for all Learners!
Sep – Dec 2022
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Programme Overview and Experience
What is the story of India since its inception 75 years ago? How did its foundational politics shape what the country became? How can its subsequent social, economical and cultural trajectory tell us about where the country is today? After 75 years as a nation, what hopes, fears and progress can Indians look forward to? This fascinating multidisciplinary programme will look at all these questions and more, giving learners a comprehensive, analytical overview of India since independence. Led by some of India's leading scholars and public intellectuals, the programme has been uniquely crafted by Ashoka University, India's leading liberal arts and sciences university, to appeal to all learners, regardless of age or background.
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Sunil Khilnani
Professor of Politics and History, Ashoka University
Ph. D. Cambridge University
Sunil Khilnani is a globally renowned scholar of politics and history.
He was the Founder and Director of the King’s India Institute at King’s College London from 2011 to 2019 . Prior to this he was Starr Foundation Professor at John Hopkins University, where he was the founder and director of South Asia Studies. He has also taught at Birkbeck University, London, and held several Visiting Professorships at Seikei University, Tokyo and at Princeton University.
He is the author of The Idea of India, and examination of the foundations of modern India that is recognized as a classic in its field. His most recent publication is Incarnations: India in 50 Lives, which was also a 50-part BBC Radio and podcast series: it recounts 2500 years of Indian history through the lives and thoughts of 50 individuals from the subcontinent.
He is currently Professor of Politics and History at Ashoka University and Dean of the AshokaX initiative.
Dr. Madhavi Menon
Professor of English, Ashoka University
Director, Centre for Studies in Gender & Sexuality
Director of the PhD Programme in English
Ph.D. Tufts University
Madhavi Menon is an eminent theorist and scholar of gender, sexuality, politics, and identity.
She joined Ashoka University in 2013 as one of its founding faculty members. She went on to establish the university’s Centre for Gender & Sexuality Studies (CSGS), which is the first of its kind in India. Previously, she was a professor at Ithaca College and American University.
Most prominently known for her work on queer theory and Shakespeare, she has also edited the collection Shakesqueer and written three books on Shakespeare and sexuality. She is also most recently the author of Infinite Varieties: A History of Desire in India and Law of Desire: Rulings on Sex & Sexuality in India.
In addition to being Director of CSGS, she is the Director of the Ph.D. programme in English and Professor of English at Ashoka University.
Dr. Rudrangshu Mukherjee
Chancellor, Professor of History, Ashoka University
D. Phil. Oxford University
Rudrangshu Mukherjee is an internationally renowned historian and author and the founding Vice-Chancellor of Ashoka University.
He was previously Editor, Editorial Pages of The Telegraph, Kolkata and has taught History at the University of Calcutta and held visiting appointments at Princeton University, the University of Manchester and University of California.
His works on the Revolt of 1857, beginning with Awadh in Revolt, 1857-58: A Study of Popular Resistance, and including his recent A Begum & A Rani: Hazrat Mahal and Lakshmibai in 1857 have become the standard reference in the field. He has also authored and edited several books on other themes, most significantly on the leaders and ideas that have made modern India, including The Penguin Gandhi Reader, New Delhi: The Making of a Capital, Great Speeches of Modern India, Nehru & Bose: Parallel Lives and most recently Tagore & Gandhi : Walking Alone, Walking Together.
Prof. Mukherjee is currently Chancellor and Professor of History at Ashoka University.
Pulapre Balakrishnan
Professor of Economics, Ashoka University
Ph.D. University of Cambridge
Professor Balakrishnan is an economist who has been the Country Economist for Ukraine at the World Bank, as well as consultant for the RBI, United Nations Development Program, and the International Labour Organisation. He is most recently the author of India’s Economy from Nehru to Modi : A Brief History.
He has previously worked at Oxford University and the Indian Statistical Institute at Delhi. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Indian Institute of Management-Kozhikode. His three decades of contribution to the field of macroeconomic policy have earned him the Malcolm Adiseshiah Award for Distinguished Contribution to Development Studies.
Pulapre Balakrishnan’s best known work includes Pricing and Inflation in India and Economic Growth in India: History and Prospect. He also publishes his work in academic journals such as Economic and Political Weekly and edited volumes on macroeconomics. He was also invited to run a column for Financial Express, where he wrote general articles on economic issues in India.
He is a Professor of Economics at Ashoka University.
Dr Taylor C. Sherman
Associate Professor, London School of Economics Department of International History
Taylor Sherman is a scholar of international history, with a specialized focus on the cultural and political history of South Asia.
Initially teaching Extra-European History at Cambridge, she went on to hold a position as a postdoctoral fellow at Royal Holloway, University of London. She is currently the Director of the LSE-Columbia MSc in International and World History.
Her research is broadly interested in the dynamic interaction between social movements and governing institutions. She has previously worked on issues of environmentalism in South Asia and published books on citizenship issues and margnizalied communities, such as Muslim Belonging in Secular India: Negotiating Citizenship in Postcolonial Hyderabad. Currently, she is working on a book called Nehru’s India: A History in Seven Myths.
She is Deputy Head and Associate Professor of South Asian History at the Department of International History at the London School of Economics.
Rita Kothari
Professor of English, Ashoka University
Director, MA in English Programme
Ph.D. Gujarat University
Rita Kothari is a multilingual scholar and translator whose work spans across different disciplines such as literature, cultural studies, anthropology, sociology, and history. Her questions emerge from observations of regions and communities in the western part of the Indian subcontinent—Gujarat, Kutch, and Sindh.
Her ethnographic research on marginal communities—through religion, caste, occupation, and gender—focuses upon narratives of identity, raising questions of both linguistic and cultural translation. Kothari has translated extensively from Gujarati and Sindhi into English, and occasionally vice versa. Her translations, as well as her edited volumes, have made significant contributions to the field of language politics and translation. Movement across languages, contexts, and cultures form the fulcrum of her interests, making translation the prism through which she sees the Indian context.
Her latest book, Uneasy Translations: Self, Experience and Indian Literature, interweaves her personal journey as an academic into reflections around self, language, and translation – with an eye upon the intangibly available category of experience. It is available here.
Shivshankar Menon
Visiting faculty of International Relations
Chair of the Ashoka Centre for China Studies
MA University of Delhi
Shivshankar Menon is a former National Security Advisor and Foreign Secretary of India.
His long career in public service spans diplomacy, national security, atomic energy and disarmament policy, including serving as India’s High-Commissioner to Pakistan and its Ambassador to China.
He currently serves as chairman of the advisory board of the Institute of Chinese Studies in New Delhi and was also a Distinguished Fellow with Brookings India. He is the author of Choices: Inside the Making of Indian Foreign Policy and the acclaimed India and Asian Geopolitics; The Past, Present. In 2010, he was named one of the ‘Top 100 Global Thinkers’ by Foreign Policy magazine.
He is presently a Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) and Visiting Professor of International Relations at Ashoka University.
Mekhala Krishnamurthy
Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, Ashoka University
Ph.D. University College, London
Mekhala Krishnamurthy is an eminent anthropologist and sociologist whose research lies at the intersection of social and civil concerns, public welfare, and government policies. She has been recognized as one of Apolitical’s global ‘100 Most Influential Academics in Government’.
She held a postdoctoral fellowship at University of Pennsylvania, where she is currently a non-resident Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI). After that, she went on to teach at Shiv Nadar University. She also holds the position of Senior Fellow at Central Policy for Research.
Through CPR, she is currently leading the State Initiative Capacity, which is a project on strengthening democratic institutions at the federal level. She was also the principal co-investigator of an initiative for CASI, looking into the state of agricultural markets in Punjab, Bihar, and Odisha. Her book project and monograph are focused on the agrarian market in Madhya Pradesh.
She is Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology in Ashoka University.
Vinay Sitapati
Associate Professor, Political Science and Legal Studies, Ashoka University
Ph.D. Princeton University
Vinay Sitapati is a political scientist and award-winning author, recognized as one of Apolitical’s global ‘100 Most Influential Academics in Government’.
After beginning his career as a journalist with The Indian Express he earned his Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University where he continues to serve as Visiting Professor of Political Science.
He is the author of two best-selling books. His first book Half-Lion, a biography of Indian Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, was also named "A Book of the Year” by The Economist. His latest book, Jugalbandi: BJP Before Modi, traces how the BJP came to power today through an analysis of its past leaders, Vajpayee and Advani.
He also writes extensively for national and international publications, where he analyzes laws, provides on-ground coverage of the elections and dissects political campaigns.
He is currently an Associate Professor of Political Science and Legal Studies at Ashoka University.
Amita Baviskar
Dean, Faculty and Professor of Environmental Studies and Sociology and Anthropology, Ashoka University
Ph.D. Cornell University
Amita Baviskar’s work on the politics of environmental changes and social inequity has been fundamental to developing the field of environmental sociology in India.
She has held teaching positions in the University of Delhi and the Institute of Economic Growth, as well as been a visiting scholar at several universities including Stanford, Cornell, SciencesPo, and the University of Cape Town. Her work on the environment also earned her a position as a member of the Forest Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Environment and Forests.
Her first book In the Belly of the River and her other works focus on resource rights, popular movements, and discourses on environmentalism spanning urban and rural geographies. She also writes on food and politics for academic journals, as well as contributing pieces on current issues to publications like Economic and Political Weekly.
She is Head of Environmental Studies, as well as Professor of Environmental Studies and Anthropology at Ashoka University.
