Rajeev Bhargava is professor of political theory and Indian political thought, head of the Department of Political Science at the University of Delhi and a prominent scholar of multiculturalism and secularism in non-Western societies.

Bhargava has held fellowships in the Harvard University Program in Ethics and the Professions, at the British Academy and at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in Delhi.

Bhargava is also the honorary director of the advanced programme of social and political theory at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, and professor of political science at Jawaharlal Nehru University. He is the South Asia Editor of openDemocracy.

Bhargava is editor of Civil Society, Public Sphere and Citizenship: Dialogues and Perceptions (2005) and co-editor of Transforming India (2000). He has also edited Secularism and its critics (1998) and co-edited Multiculturalism, Liberalism and Democracy (1999). He is author of Individualism in Social Science (1992).

Recent articles

What is the connection between elections, democracy, and the life-chances of the poor? Rajeev & Tani Bhargava draw a lesson from India in this, openDemocracy's first article, originally published on 13 May 2001.

Western variants of multiculturalism and secularism are being challenged by religious demands for public recognition of faith. Instead of reinventing the wheel, the world should learn from India, says Rajeev Bhargava.

“Democracies are coded for impatience. Voters can wait, but not indefinitely.” After India’s astonishing election, Rajeev Bhargava counsels Congress: deliver fairness, or the BJP and Hindu chauvinism will be back.

Why does Hindu nationalism take an aggressive, exclusive form? This is a question of psychology as well as politics. Rajeev Bhargava, in New Delhi, examines the worldview of activists who use ‘Indianness’ as a weapon against their Muslim, Christian, and secular fellow-citizens.

The great Indian economist Amartya Sen has proposed the mind-opening idea that democracy is a protection against famine. Rajeev Bhargava takes up the theme. How can political freedom help the poor, he asks, not just in their material life but in expanding their sense of society and its horizon of possibility?