Niraja Gopal Jayal
{{Short description|Indian political scientist}}
{{Use Indian English|date=November 2022}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Infobox academic
| nationality = Indian
| workplaces = London School of Economics, King's College London
}}
Niraja Gopal Jayal is an Indian political scientist, who works on issues concerning citizenship, representation, and democracy. She is currently a professor at both, King's College London and the London School of Economics, in the United Kingdom, and previously taught at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India.
Career
Jayal taught at Jawaharlal Nehru University from 1986, and was associated with their Centre for the Study of Law and Governance.{{Cite web |title=INDIAN RESEARCH INFORMATION NETWORK SYSTEM |url=http://irins.inflibnet.ac.in/ |access-date=2022-10-27 |website=irins.inflibnet.ac.in |language=en}}{{Cite journal |last1=Lama-Rewal |first1=Stéphanie Tawa |last2=Jayal |first2=Niraja Gopal |date=2020-12-15 |title="What is new is the comprehensive nature of the political assault on academic institutions"—An Interview with Niraja Gopal Jayal |url=https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/6842 |journal=South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal |language=fr |issue=24/25 |doi=10.4000/samaj.6842 |issn=1960-6060|doi-access=free }} In October 2021, she joined the King's India Institute at King's College London, in the United Kingdom, holding the Avantha Chair.{{Cite web |title=Professor Niraja Gopal Jayal |url=https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/niraja-gopal-jayal |access-date=2022-10-27 |website=www.kcl.ac.uk}} From 2019 to 2023, she is also a Centennial Professor at the Department of Gender Studies in the London School of Economics, in the United Kingdom.{{Cite web |last=Science |first=London School of Economics and Political |title=Niraja Gopal Jayal |url=https://www.lse.ac.uk/gender/people-profiles/Visitors/Professor-Niraja-Gopal-Jayal.aspx |access-date=2022-10-27 |website=London School of Economics and Political Science |language=en-GB}}
In 2009, Jayal was invited to deliver the Radhakrishnan Memorial Lectures at All Souls College, Oxford University. In 2019, she was invited to deliver lectures on Indian democracy at the M.S. Merian – R. Tagore International Centre of Advanced Studies, a collaborative project involving six Indian and German institutions.{{Cite web |last=Himanshu |title=ICAS:MP Lecture by Niraja Gopal Jayal (Jawaharlal Nehru University) |url=https://micasmp.hypotheses.org/2937 |access-date=2022-10-27 |website=ICAS:MP |date=2019 |doi=10.58079/rf9v |language=en-US}} She has also held visiting positions at EHESS, France; Princeton University in the United States of America; and the University of Melbourne in Australia. In 2011-2012, she was a vice-president of the American Political Science Association. Jayal is also a trustee of the New India Foundation, a philanthropic organisation in India that funds academic research.{{Cite web |title=New India Foundation |url=https://www.newindiafoundation.org/trustees |access-date=2022-10-27 |website=New India Foundation |language=en-US}}
She is a member of the editorial boards of several political science journals, including Governance (2016 to present), Pacific Affairs (2015 to present); Indian Politics and Policy (Policy Studies Organization; American Political Science Association) (2017- to present); International Feminist Journal of Politics (2011–17); India Review (2002 to present); Studies in Indian Politics (2013–present); Parliamentary Affairs (2019-2024), and is an editor of the Modern South Asia Series of books published by Oxford University Press (2017 to present).{{Cite web |title=Niraja Gopal Jayal |url=https://www.pass.va/en/academicians/ordinary/gopal_jayal.html |access-date=2022-10-27 |website=www.pass.va |language=en}}
In 2013, Jayal was a member of a committee established by the Ministry of Finance, in the Government of India, to establish a new composite index to measure backwardness in Indian states. She has also served on advisory committees to the Government of India's Ministry of Panchayati Raj (rural local governance), and as part of a committee established to review the functioning of the Indian Council of Social Science Research. In 2008, she was commissioned by the Government of India's Ministry of Panchayati Raj (rural local governance) to study the representation of women in local rural governance councils called panchayats, which formed part of the basis for a proposed Women's Reservation Bill that would reserve 50% of seats on such council for women (the bill did not pass).{{Cite web |date=2008-06-05 |title=A silent revolution |url=https://frontline.thehindu.com/cover-story/article30196088.ece |access-date=2022-10-27 |website=frontline.thehindu.com |language=en}} From 2002 to 2005, Jayal worked with UNRISD on their Ethnic Structure, Inequality and Governance of the Public initiative, authoring and publishing a report on Ethnic Diversity and the Governance of Public Institutions in India.{{Cite web |title=Niraja Gopal Jayal |url=https://www.unrisd.org/en/about/people/niraja-gopal-jayal-61854cb1bb51c |access-date=2022-10-27 |website=UNRISD}}{{Cite book |last1=Jayal |first1=Niraja Gopal |url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/593657 |title=Representing India |last2=Development |first2=UN Research Institute for Social |date=2006 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-1-4039-8612-2 |language=en}}
Gopal has criticized the Indian Government's proposed National Register of Citizens and Citizenship Amendment Act 2019, particularly noting legal challenges in establishing and implementing both, as well the shift towards an ethno-nationalist conception of India, and related political violence against religious minorities.{{Cite news |last=Jayal |first=Niraja Gopal |date=2019-11-26 |title=The misadventure of a new citizenship regime |language=en-IN |work=The Hindu |url=https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-misadventure-of-a-new-citizenship-regime/article30090226.ece |access-date=2022-10-27 |issn=0971-751X}}{{Cite news | date=2019-11-09 |title='Violence against minorities is being normalised today' |language=en-IN |work=The Hindu |url=https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/bangalore/violence-against-minorities-is-being-normalised-today/article29933713.ece |access-date=2022-10-27 |issn=0971-751X}}
Publications and honors
Jayal's book, Citizenship and Its Discontents (Harvard University Press, 2013), won the Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Prize of the Association of Asian Studies in 2015 and was reviewed in The Hindu,{{Cite news |last=Gudavarthy |first=Ajay |date=2014-06-30 |title=Reducing the citizen to a consumer |language=en-IN |work=The Hindu |url=https://www.thehindu.com/books/books-reviews/reducing-the-citizen-to-a-consumer/article6164051.ece |access-date=2022-10-27 |issn=0971-751X}} Foreign Affairs,{{Cite journal |last=Nathan |first=Andrew J. |date=2013 |title=Review of Citizenship and Its Discontents: An Indian History |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23527065 |journal=Foreign Affairs |volume=92 |issue=6 |pages=191 |jstor=23527065 |issn=0015-7120}} The American Historical Review,{{Cite journal |last=Hansen |first=Thomas Blom |date=2014 |title=Review of Citizenship and Its Discontents: An Indian History |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43698928 |journal=The American Historical Review |volume=119 |issue=5 |pages=1669 |doi=10.1093/ahr/119.5.1669 |jstor=43698928 |issn=0002-8762}} and Economic and Political Weekly.{{Cite journal |last=Samaddar |first=Ranabir |date=2014 |editor-last=Jayal |editor-first=Niraja Gopal |title=Citizenship: Norm, Institution and the Contests |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24479260 |journal=Economic and Political Weekly |volume=49 |issue=6 |pages=36–38 |jstor=24479260 |issn=0012-9976}}
Her other publications include:
- Representing India: Ethnic Diversity and the Governance of Public Institutions (Palgrave Macmillan 2006) {{ISBN|9781403986122}}
- Democracy and the State: Welfare, Secularism and Development in Contemporary India (Oxford University Press 1999) {{ISBN|9780195656121}}
- (with Sudha Pai) Democratic governance in India : challenges of poverty, development, and identity (Sage Publications 2001) {{ISBN|9780761995562}}
- (co-editor with Pratap Bhanu Mehta), The Oxford Companion to Politics in India {{ISBN|9780198075929}}
- (editor) Democracy in India (Oxford University Press 2001)
- (editor) Local Governance in India: Decentralisation and Beyond (Oxford University Press 2005) {{ISBN|9780195692969}}
- Citizenship and Its Discontents (Harvard University Press, 2013) {{ISBN|9780674066847}}
- Citizenship imperilled : India's fragile democracy (Orient Blackswan 2021) {{ISBN|9788178246451}}