Vatsal Naresh
Bio
Vatsal Naresh is a College Fellow in Social Studies at Harvard. Vatsal’s research interests span democratic theory, political violence, realism, and constitutionalism in 19th and 20th century South Asian, Afro-modern, and European political thought. His current book project, Democracy’s Violence, offers a new interpretation of Alexis de Tocqueville, W. E. B. Du Bois, B. R. Ambedkar, and Hannah Arendt’s writings on majorities, identities, and collective violence. Vatsal’s publications include Negotiating Democracy and Religious Pluralism: India, Pakistan, and Turkey (OUP 2021) and Constituent Assemblies (CUP 2018). Before completing his PhD in Political Science at Yale in 2022, Vatsal studied History at Delhi University and Political Science at Columbia University; and worked as a graduate researcher at the Center for Democracy, Toleration, and Religion, in New York City.
Publications
- Negotiating Democracy and Religious Pluralism: India, Pakistan, and Turkey (co-edited with Karen Barkey and Sudipta Kaviraj; Oxford University Press 2021)
- Constituent Assemblies (co-edited with Jon Elster, Roberto Gargarella, and Bjorn Erik Rasch; Cambridge University Press 2018)
- “Pride and Prejudice in Austin’s cornerstone” in Udit Bhatia (ed.), The Indian Constituent Assembly (Routledge 2018). Please write to me at vatsal_naresh@fas.harvard.edu if you would like an updated version of this essay.