The Athenaeum invited Sudha Pai. With a reorientation from the desire for social justice to economic aspiration, two rapid shifts are visible in the political preferences of Dalits in India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh. Attracted by promises of development and cultural inclusion, the Dalits—previously referred to more generally as “Untouchables”—were drawn away from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) towards the dominant and nationalist BJP in the 2014 elections. But since 2015, violent protests by Dalits across India against rising atrocities point to disillusionment with the BJP. Sudha Pai, a political science scholar and researcher, will address these changing equations which indicate fragmentation between Ambedkarite and Hindutvawadi Dalits with consequences for the “Dalit Question” and the 2019 Indian elections.

Sudha Pai taught political science at the Centre for Political Studies and served as rector from 2011 to 2015 at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Currently, she is president of PRAMAN (Policy Research and Management Network) a research institute that undertakes research on areas such as health, agriculture, foreign policy, and education for the government, NGOs, and in collaboration with university departments. She is also a visiting fellow at the Indian Institute of Dalit Studies, New Delhi. She was a national fellow, Indian Council of Social Science Research, New Delhi in 2016 to 2017 and senior fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library Teen Murti, New Delhi from 2006 to 2009 where she wrote “Developmental State and the Dalit Question in Madhya Pradesh: Congress Response” (Routledge, 2010).

Pai was awarded the faculty research fellowship, Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute Canada, in 1996. She has been a member of many projects including SIDA and UNIRISD. Based on her extensive research on Uttar Pradesh, she has also served on the governing body of the Govind Vallabh Pant Institute, Allahabad, and the Giri Institute of Development Studies, Lucknow.

Pai joined the Centre for Political Studies in 1980 as assistant professor where she taught courses and guided research in the field of Indian politics, public policy and comparative politics. Her graduation and post-graduation was from the University of Delhi and her M/Phil and Ph.D. from the Centre for Political Studies. She was assistant professor from 1972 to 1975 at Gargi College for Women, Delhi University.

Her books include “Dalit Assertion and the Unfinished Democratic Revolution: The BSP in Uttar Pradesh” (Sage 2002); “Indian Parliament: A Critical Appraisal” (ed. with Avinash Kumar, Orient Blackswan, 2014, 2016); “Handbook on Politics in the Indian States Regions, Political Parties and Economic Reforms” (ed. Oxford University Press, 2013, 2015); “Revisiting 1956 B.R. Ambedkar and States Reorganization” (co-authored, Orient Blackswan, 2014, 2015) and more recently “Everyday Communalism: Riots in Contemporary Uttar Pradesh” (Oxford University Press, 2018). She is also a regular contributor to thewire.in and other media.

Pai has been selected to receive the South Asian Studies Association's (SASA) 2019 Exemplar Award for Academic Achievement and will be speaking at the SASA's spring conference to be held at CMC in early March 2019.