Vignesh Rajahmani

Vignesh Rajahmani is a PhD researcher in the India Institute, where he started in January 2019. He has a MA in Modern India from King’s and a BCom from Loyola College, University of Madras, Chennai, India.

Before starting his PhD, he worked as a legislative research consultant for over three years in New Delhi, India. He was associated with Youth Forum on Foreign Policy, a youth-led initiative in the field. He also briefly interned with the National Commission for Scheduled Castes commissioned under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, and Goldman Sachs. His research interests include identities in democracies, the idea of nationalism and its manifestation in everyday life, animal rights and foreign policy.

Vignesh's thesis seeks to investigate the transition of a socio-cultural movement i.e., the Dravidian movement, principally rooted in the anti-caste discourse, socio-economic mobility of marginalized communities and Tamil language, into party politics.