Faculty at School of Humanities and Social Sciences

Medha

Medha

Assistant Professor

School of Humanities and Social Sciences


Contact Information

My primary research interests lie in recovering constructions and contestations of local and global orders with a focus on the role of stigmatized identities in IR, with a particular focus on Islam and caste in the South Asian context. In this regard I am currently writing a book provisionally titled Escaping the Nation: India, Islam, and International Relations. Via an analysis of Islam in India’s identity and foreign policy, the book demonstrates that ‘Muslimness’ in India’s international articulations often served as attempts to constitute an alternate form of sovereignty that escaped the bounds of the postcolonial nation state. 

My research also seeks to foreground caste in international relations and diplomacy. With my colleague Sruthi Muraleedharan I am co-editing a special issue on ‘The International in Ambedkar’ based on a workshop organised on the topic in November 2022. With Kalathmika Natarjan (University of Exeter) I am working on a project problematising the uncritical use of the term ‘pariah’ in international relations. In this regard we have recently submitted a co-authored paper titled ‘Pariah’ States and ‘Untouchable’ Subjects: Foregrounding Caste in International Relations for a special issue on ‘Caste and Diplomacy’ for the Hague Journal of Diplomacy.

  • History and International Relations
  • Islam and IR
  • Caste and IR
  • Postcolonial and Decolonial Theory
  • Discourse Theory

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  • PhD ( Christian Albrecht Universität zu Kiel & GIGA German Institute for Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, Germany (awaiting)
  • MA Media Studies and Politics (specialization: war and conflict)
    Aarhus Universitet, Denmark and Swansea University, UK (with a semester at University of Amsterdam), 2010
  • Post-Graduate Diploma in Mass Communication,
    Symbiosis Institute of Mass Communication (SIMC), Pune, India, 2002
  • BA (Special) English, Pune University, India, 2000

  • Research Fellow, German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA), Hamburg, Germany, Oct. 2018-Aug. 2019
  • Research Consultant, Robert Bosch Stiftung, Berlin, Germany, Nov. 2013-Jan.2014
  • Research Associate, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi, India, Mar. 2012-Jul. 2013
  • Reporter, The Vancouver Sun, Vancouver, Canada, Jun. 2011-Mar. 2012
  • Assistant Producer/Reporter, Radio Netherlands Worldwide (RNW), Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Jul. 2009-Sep. 2009
  • South Asian Fellow/Reporter, Deutsche Welle, Bonn, Germany, Jan. 2008-Jul. 2008 
  • Senior Copy Editor, The Times of India, Pune, India, Jan. 2006-Jun. 2007

  • Emerging Scholars Forum, Global Perspectives Journal 2019-2021
  • Research Fellowship, Institute of Asia Studies, German Institute of Global and Area Studies 2019
  • DAAD Graduate School Scholarship 2014-2019
  • Erasmus Mundus Scholarship, European Commission 2008-2010
  • South Asia Fellowship, Deutsche Welle, Bonn 2008

  • Medha (forthcoming), Escaping the Nation: Abul Kalam Azad, Islam, and India’s Post-Independence Foreign Policy (1940-64). International History Review. [re-submitted post R&R]
  • Medha and Kalthmika Natarajan (forthcoming), ‘Pariah’ States and ‘Untouchable’ Subjects: Foregrounding Caste in International Relations. [Manuscript submitted]

 

Book Reviews

Medha (2015), Book Review: Standardizing Diversity: The Political Economy of Language Regimes. Amy H. Liu. LSE Review of Books (29 Jul 2015)

Medha, (2015), Book review: Caricaturing Culture in India: Cartoons and History in the Modern World. LSE Review of Books (08 Jun 2015)

Chapters in Books

Medha, Kumar, M. and Chauhan, R. (2013), Scenarios 2030, in: Rumel Dahiya (ed.), Developments in the Gulf Region: Prospects and Challenges for India in the Next Two Decades, New Delhi: IDSA

Medha and Kalathmika Natarajan (2020). Making Identity Count: India 1950. Report. Making Identity Project (Hopf, T, Bentley, A., Vucetic, S.). https://www.makingidentitycount.org/india

Medha (2019), The Revocation of Kashmir's Autonomy: High-Risk Hindutva Politics at Play, GIGA Focus Asia, 05/2019, Hamburg: GIGA

Medha (2016), India a Home Only to Hindus? New Refugee Policy Exacerbates Tensions, GIGA Focus Asia, 08/2016, Hamburg: GIGA

Medha (2017), Indien: Heimtstatt nur für Hindus? Süd Asien: Zeitschrift der Südasien Büro e.V. 1/2017 

Medha, (2016), India a Home Only to Hindus? New Refugee Policy Exacerbates Tensions, GIGA Focus Asia, 08, December

Medha, and Julka, A. (2014), The Politics of Modi's Vegetarianism, in: The Disorder Of Things (Academic Blog)

Medha (2014), Den Puls der Nation überwachen: Modi und die indischen Medien, Südasien: Zeitschrift der Südasien Büro e.V., 3-4/2014

Invited Lectures

Islam and the Politics of the Global South’ – Summer Seminar at the Chair for International Relations at Albert-Ludwigs University Freiburg, Germany – May 2022

Islam and the Politics of the Global South’ – Summer Seminar at the Chair for International Relations at Albert-Ludwigs University Freiburg, Germany – May 2021

‘Religion as a central category in Indian diplomacy’ – Guest Lecture as part of the course Postcolonial Indian Foreign Policy: Intersections of Race, Caste, and Gender, School of History, Classics and Archeology, University of Edinburgh - 24th Feb 2021

‘Islam in the Constitution of Indian Identity and Foreign Policy’ – Seminar as part of the Global Studies Programme at Albert-Ludwigs University Freiburg, Germany – November 2020

Conference Presentations

Medha and Kalthmika Natarajan (2023), ‘Pariah’ States and ‘Untouchable’ Subjects: Foregrounding Caste in International Relations. Workshop on Caste and Diplomacy, Leiden University, May 22-23, Leiden, The Netherlands.

Medha (2022). Seeking Relations International in Urdu Poetry of Late Colonial India. ISA Annual Convention 2022 (Mar 28 – Apr 2), Nashville, USA, In online mode.

Medha (2020), Escaping the Nation: Abul Kalam Azad, Islam, and India’s Foreign Policy (1940-64), Millennium Conference 2020, LSE, London (Oct 22 – 24), In online mode.

Medha (2019), ‘Abul Kalam Azad and Muslim Internationalisms of the 1930s’ presented at Conference on Institutional Legacies of India’s Internationalist Thought and Practice, 1919-2019, organised by SOAS, London and the Department of International Relations, Ashoka University, Sonepat, 2020, Jan 31 - 1 Feb.

Medha (2018), ‘An Indo-Islamic Internationalism?’ International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Convention 2018, San Francisco, USA, Apr 4-7, 2018

Medha (2017), ‘The foreign politics of Identity: Dialectics of Self and Other in India’s Foreign Policy’ Changing Asia 2017: Perspectives on Regional and Global Cooperation, IDSA, New Delhi, India, Sept 15-18, 2017

Medha (2017), ‘Asia-Africa Unity and India: An exploration of Islam in India’s post-Independence Third World Politics’ International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Convention 2017, Baltimore, Maryland, USA, Feb 22- 25 2017 

Medha, and Wojczewski, T. (2017), ‘Non-alignment: An Untapped Theoretical Source for Building a Global IR?’ International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Convention 2017, Baltimore, Maryland, USA, Feb 22- 25 2017 

Medha, (2016), ‘A solid wall of friendship and defence for India’: Rethinking Islam in the 1950s Indian Diplomacy’, Millennium Conference “Racialised Realities in World Politics” London School of Economics, London, UK, 22-Oct 22 to 23 2016

Medha (2016), ‘Building Alliance for a Revolution: Diaspora Diplomacy in an Imperial Age’ ISA-Asia Pacific Conference, Hong Kong, June 25 – 27 2016

Medha (2016), ‘Ways of being and belonging: An Indo-Islamic perspective on relating with the world’, ISA's 57th Annual Convention "Exploring Peace", Atlanta, 18 Mar 2016 

Medha and Nymalm, N. (2016), ‘Constituting causality beyond the ideational/material divide – a conciliatory reply to the critics of 'causal rejection'', ISA's 57th Annual Convention, "Exploring Peace", Atlanta, 16 Mar 2016

Round-table participation

Chaired and organised panel titled ‘South Asia: Imposed Categories and Imposing Powers’ for the NIICE International Studies Convention (Aug 27-29, 2021)

Participant in webinar on Caste in International Relations organised by Nepal Institute for International Cooperation and Engagement (NIICE), 18 June 2020 (Available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcefzg6Zo24)