Professor Christophe Jaffrelot

Biography

Christophe Jaffrelot is Avantha Chair and Professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at the King's India Institute and also the Research Lead for the Global Institutes, King’s College London. He teaches South Asian politics and history at Sciences Po, Paris and is an Overseas Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He was Director of Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Internationales (CERI) at Sciences Po, between 2000 and 2008.

Christophe holds a Diploma of Sciences Po (1985), an M.A. in history of the University of Paris I-Sorbonne (1986), an Advanced Study Degree of the EHESS (1986), a Hindi DULCO of “Langues O”, the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (1990) and a Ph.D. in political science from Sciences Po (1991). He joined the CNRS in 1991 and became Director of research in 2002. As a CNRS senior research fellow, he is affiliated to CERI-Sciences Po, where he teaches since 1991.

He takes part in the editorial board of several journals and is the senior editor of a Hurst book series that he has founded in 1999, Comparative Politics and International Studies. He is also a Non Resident Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington D.C. and is a regular commentator on Indian and Pakistani politics in France, UK, north America and in India where he writes a fortnightly column in The Indian Express.

Research

• Politics of religion and identity in India and Pakistan.
• Sociology of caste and class in India.
• Political economy, business and politics in India.
• India’s agriculture and peasants’ new demands

Christophe is currently (co-)leading four collective research projects on Muslims in India (Henry Luce Foundation, with Princeton University and Columbia University), Shared Sacred Sites in South Asia (Agence National de la Recherche Scientifique - with EHESS), the Social Profile of Indian National and Provincial Elected Representatives (CNRS - with Ashoka University) and Federalism in Pakistan (with Lahore University of Management Science).

Further details

See Christophe's research profile