Biographical statement
Narendra Subramanian studies the politics of ethnicity, nationalism, religion, gender and race, primarily in the context of postcolonial India. His work explores the role of identity politics in political mobilization, electoral competition, public culture, and public policy; the functioning of democracies amidst social inequalities with long histories; and different ways in which policymakers and citizens attempt to resolve the tensions between official secularism and the significant presence of religion in public life. He is Associate Professor of Political Science at McGill University. His book, Ethnicity and Populist Mobilization: Political Parties, Citizens and Democracy in South India (Oxford University Press, 1999), explored how mobilization behind language and caste banners strengthened democracy in parts of India. He is completing a book manuscript titled Nation and Family: Cultural Pluralism, Gender Inequality and Personal Law in India, which examines the changes in the personal laws specific to religious group in India. Another current project of his compares the change in caste relations in India and race relations in the United States since the sustained enfranchisement of the lower castes and African-Americans, focusing on two regions of particularly high ascriptive inequalities – the Kaveri delta in southern India and the Mississippi delta in the southern United States. He received his B.A. from Princeton University, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
