I am a PhD candidate in Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam, researching caste, capitalism, and Hindutva in neoliberal India.

My work combines ethnography, activism, and critical theory to examine structural violence. My academic work builds on an engagement as a journalist documenting housing rights struggles in Mumbai (Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan), social activist supporting homeless women (Urja Trust), as a journalist with GroundXero documenting social movements in Maharashtra and aa s researcher conducting racial equity audits for South Asian workplaces. With an MPhil in Women's Studies from TISS Mumbai, where I have studied nomadic Dhangar women's lives through feminist ethnography.

Media appearances

• Good enough to be studied, but not to study: NT/DNT students in TISS
• Attack on Nomadic Shepherding Community Members in Maharashtra
• The Aarey Land Grab: Mumbai's Adivasi settlements are under siege 
• Concept Note: Vimukta Month – Where Goes Our Freedom?
• Mass Hysterectomy of Bahujan Women Plantation Workers in Maharashtra Sugar Belt
• Open Letter to the Chief Minister of Maharashtra
• 13-year old Nomadic Shepherd Girl raped by Maratha Man near Pune
• The Strike that Never Ended: Episode 1 (The Beginnings)
• Protest Against Demolition in Bhimchhaya Basti
• Shocking! Maharashtra Govt. gives up on lives of 30,000 citizens of Mumbai – घर बचाओ घर बनाओ आंदोलन
• Despite HC orders, why is Mumbai administration unable to allot houses to the aggrieved of Mahul – घर बचाओ घर बनाओ आंदोलन
• Mahul: CM constituted a committee just to buy more time, Time for decision not discussion
• Mahul residents welcome MHADA offer of 300 houses, but it is not a complete solution – घर बचाओ घर बनाओ आंदोलन
• Nexus between forest officials and slumlords exposed – घर बचाओ घर बनाओ आंदोलन
• Women’s Lives in Nomadism: In Context of Nomadic Shepherd Women: Arati Kade talks to Abhay Kumar
• Foreign Education and Career Series

Research methods

• Marxist-Feminist Ethnography
• Qualitative Interviews (Narrative, Life Histories)
• Content Analysis (Media)
• Fieldwork (Rural/Urban Marginalized Communities)
• Critical Theory (Phule-Ambedkarism-Marxism, Gramscian Hegemony)

Current research project

My PhD research examines the intersection of caste, capitalism, and patriarchy in neoliberal India, focusing on lower middle-caste peasant and pastoralist communities in Maharashtra. Through long-term ethnographic fieldwork, I explore how neoliberal reforms, Hindu nationalism (Hindutva), and caste-based identity politics reshape everyday life, political mobilization, and labor relations.

Challenging the notion that caste is a pre-capitalist residue, my research demonstrates how caste adapts to and thrives within neoliberal capitalism. Land dispossession, credit dependency, and agrarian crisis intensify caste competition, which Hindutva exploits to consolidate power. Using the concept of the culturalization of caste(Natrajan 2011) to explain how caste elites reframe structural inequality as cultural difference, enabling alignment with Hindu nationalism and fragmenting anti-caste solidarities.

My research highlights the gendered dimensions of this transformation, showing how women’s labor and sexuality are mobilized to reproduce caste and Hindu supremacy while being drawn into patriarchal nationalist projects.

I argue that Hindutva is best understood as Brahminical neoliberalism—using privatization and identity politics to sustain caste-class-patriarchal hierarchies. Grounded in anti-caste, feminist, and Marxist frameworks, my work advances a materialist critique of identity politics and rethinks caste-class-gender formations in contemporary India.

Research grants & honours

National Overseas Scholarship, Government of India.