Ajay Gudavarthy is currently an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His areas of interests include political theory, human rights, and nature of civil society and contemporary political movements in India. He has recently completed editing a critical volume on Partha Chatterjee’s concept of political society titled Reframing Democracy and Agency in India: Interrogating Political Society (Anthem Press, London, 2012). He was Charles Wallace visiting Fellow with the Centre for South Asia, SOAS, London in 2008, a visiting Fellow, Goldsmiths College, University of London, 2010, and with the Centre for Citizenship, Civil Society and Rule of Law, University of Aberdeen, 2012. He is also a member of the British Academy partnership out of which this conference has grown.