I work on democracy after empire, global constitutionalisms, and emerging technologies, focusing primarily on the transition from empire to constitutional democracy, and from constitutional democracy to algorithmic governance in India.

Justification After Empire: Anticolonialism and Democratic Reconstruction in India

My first book manuscript analyzes how the justification of political order after empire is caught in rival projects of categorizing the postcolonial world. It examines how anticolonialism, princely state politics, postcolonial democratic constitutionalism, and majoritarian nationalism use different forms of knowledge and standards of progress to justify, i.e., provide reasons to legitimize political rule after empire. The book then examines if and how these rival forms of justification impact algorithmic governance in postcolonial India. The manuscript is currently under review at a leading university press.

The Knowledge of Structures Problem: Democratic Contestation in the Age of Algorithmic Governance

Going ahead, my work would examine if democratic reconstruction matters as governments across the globe embrace algorithmic governance. Through research on digital identity systems, India Stack, citizenship verification, AI governance, and computational infrastructure, I examine what happens when these systems acquire increasing governing authority while becoming more difficult for democratic publics to identify, understand, and reconstruct. I call this the Knowledge of Structures Problem: the possibility that the structures through which governments know and govern populations become increasingly consequential to democratic life while becoming decreasingly available to ordinary practices of political contestation.