The book discussion will be conducted on 7 January 2022 at 5:00 PM IST on zoom. Register

About Speaker

Prof. Tariq Modood is a Professor of Sociology, Politics, and Public Policy, and the Founding Director of the Research Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship at the University of Bristol in the UK. He completed both his Bachelor’s and Master’s at the University of Durham, and went on to earn a PhD from the University College Swansea in Wales, UK.

Following fellowships at Nuffield College Oxford and the University of Manchester, Dr Modood became a Senior Research Fellow at the Policy Studies Institute from 1993 to 1997. He also served at the Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain from 1997-2000, the IPPR Commission on National Security from 2007-2009, and the National Equality Panel from 2008-2010. As a leading expert in the fields of Multiculturalism and Public Policy, Dr Modood has contributed widely to important research projects. He was the principal researcher of the Fourth National Survey of Ethnic Minorities in Britain, published as “Ethnic Minorities in Britain: Diversity and Disadvantage” in 1997. Dr Modood is strongly committed to public engagement, regularly participating in media and policy debates in Britain. As a British Asian Muslim, he has adopted a wider European approach to multiculturalism and his work largely focuses on the politics of being Muslim in Britain, and the West in general, and its relation to the theory and policy of Multiculturalism.  As a result, he has worked closely with the British government to try and lessen the gaps in multicultural Britain.

Dr Modood is furthermore the co-founding Editor of the international journal Ethnicities. He has many publications to his name, including Multiculturalism: A Civic Idea (2007), Secularism, Religion, and Multicultural Citizenship (2009), and European Multiculturalism (2012). In 2001, he was awarded Order of the British Empire (MBE) for his vast contribution to social sciences and ethnic relations, and subsequently elected to the Academy of Social Sciences in 2004.

About Chair

Prof. Tanweer Fazal is a professor of Sociology at University of Hyderabad, specializes in sociology of nationalism, community formation and identifications with specific focus on their implications on the discourse of rights and entitlements. His research has a strong element of public policy orientation that involves rigorous analysis of existing policy instruments while suggesting new modes of intervention. Fazal was an associate professor at Centre for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University and at the Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Jamia Millia Islamia from 2006 to 2014. He has been a Research Consultant with Prime Minister’s High-Level Committee (Sachar Committee, 2006) wherein he worked specifically on status stratification with particular reference to the OBCs among the Muslims of India.

Fazal has been Associate Fellow (Hony.) at the Delhi Policy Group, a Member of the International Editorial Advisory Board of the journal, South Asian History and Culture (Routledge, UK); and was an Ex-officio Member of the Planning Commission’s Working Group on Empowerment of Minorities for the 11th Five Year Plan.

He is the author of ‘Nation-state’ and Minority Rights in India: Comparative Perspectives of Muslim and Sikh Identities (London; Routledge, 2015), Minority Nationalisms in South Asia (ed. London: Routledge, 2012) and The Minority Conundrum: Living in Majoritarian Times (Delhi: Penguin, 2020)