My role
As Deputy Vice–Chancellor for Global Engagement and Employability, my primary role is to lead, develop and coordinate the University of Westminster's internationalisation as well as provision of education that enhances employability of our students.
I am responsible for ensuring our University is a global institution, promoting a culture of global engagement across the University, championing a wide range of international activities to build on and build up our international connections, internationalising the Westminster experience for our students from diverse backgrounds, ensuring healthy international recruitment, and supporting structures and practices that value our international students and alumni. As the DVC leading the University’s Employability agenda, I am accountable for the development and delivery of our Employability Strategy, in collaboration with colleagues across the University. In addition to making Employability integral to education, the focus here is on strong community, public, institutional and business relations that increase mentoring, skills development, internship, placement, and employment opportunities for our students.
The University of Westminster is a highly plural and multicultural community, located in a world city, with students and colleagues from across the globe. This shapes our values and we want to make sure everyone feels valued and confident to bring their whole selves to study and work. Making all our students gain experiences to become internationally competitive and act as global citizens in general and making international students feel fully supported and valued in particular is my top priority. I am keen to build further on the network of international connections that the University enjoys and that enrich the cultural and intellectual life of our institution. My focus is on consolidation as well as expansion of our relations.
I also have high level responsibility for leading the work that promotes our Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion strategy.
Background
A professor in politics and international relations, I have been the Head of School of Social Sciences (2018–2023), Head of Department (2013–18) and Research Director (2010–13) of Politics and International Relations at the University of Westminster. Before joining the University in 2007 as a Reader in the Centre for the Study of Democracy, I was an ESRC postdoctoral fellow (2002–03) and Lecturer (2003–07) at the University of Bath. My PhD is from University of Bristol (1998–2002), MA in International Law and Politics from University of Hull (1997-98) and BA in History (Honours) from St Stephen’s College, Delhi University. I come from India and am British-Indian. I identify as queer in personal and political terms. In recent years, in addition to my usual areas of academic research in politics and international relations, I have focused on issues of equality, diversity, and inclusion in higher education sector.
Research
I have shifted places and disciplines, I have experienced elite and non elite as well as religious and secular education, I indulge in concepts as much as in every day politics. What has remained consistent so far is my desire to produce scholarship that is meaningful to groups and peoples who are often marginalised, minoritised, occupied and suppressed. This desire comes across in my research, academic writings and public engagement on topics including colonial practices of postcolonial states; China, Tibet and Xinjiang; Hindu nationalism in India; politics and international relations of stateless Tibetans; politics of gender, security and representation; ethnic relations in Zanzibar; emergence of China and India as major non-Western powers; contested nature of nation-state formations in China and South Asia
I have authored the monographs Geopolitical Exotica: Tibet in Western Imagination, Tibet: A Victim of Geopolitics, and Hindu Nationalism in India and the Politics of Fear and published a number of chapters in edited collections and articles in journals. The easiest way to locate my publications is through my Academia page.
I have a significant presence in popular media and a google search for my name links to a range of forums including comment articles in The Guardian, YouTube videos, cited expert views in newspapers of the USA, UK, China, India and Singapore, and blogs. I have held visiting positions at University of California Berkeley, Australian National University, Centre for Bhutan Studies, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, Jawaharlal Nehru University and the Central University of Hyderabad and delivered plenary talks, lectures and seminar papers at institutions in USA, Europe, India, Bhutan, China, Russia, Pakistan, Canada, Singapore, and Australia.
External roles
Currently, I am the Chair of London Higher's EDI Network and of International Studies Association’s LGBTQA Caucus. I am also a member of Research England's EDI Expert Advisory Group (2023-2026). I am a visiting professor at the Northeastern University. .