Research Interests

Religion, as a social phenomenon, fascinates me. My primary research interests revolve around various dimensions of religiosities in a globalised world and their analysis through the frameworks of modernity and late modernity. I particularly work on themes related to Islam in the postcolonial Indian context, focusing on Islamic activism, Muslim women’s questions, sectarian identities, and emerging Muslim politics. I also have keen research interests in emerging forms of new spirituality, identity questions, emerging forms of atheism, and political mobilisation within Hinduism. Questions related to social movements, democracy, and secularism are other research areas where I am deeply interested. 

Office Location

• Room no.: HSB 339B
• E-mail: rsanthosh[at]iitm[.]ac[.]in, rsantho[at]gmail[.]com
• Phone : +91 (44) 2257 4517

• 2025-Present. Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Madras.
• 2021-2025 Associate Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Madras.
• 2011-2021 Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Madras.
• 2008-2011 Assistant Director, Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, Mangalore University, Mangalore.
• 2004-2008. Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology Christ College, Bangalore.

• Contemporary Indian Society: A Sociological View
• Globalisation and Change
• Introduction to Sociology
• Development Perspectives
• Perspectives in Social Sciences
• Development Theory and Practice

• Religion and Modernity
• Indian Social Structure and Development

• Classical Sociological Theories (12 weeks)
• Globalisation: Theoretical Perspectives (12 weeks)
• Indian Society: Sociological Perspectives(12 weeks)

• 2022. ‘Emergence and Articulations of New Atheism: An Exploratory Study in South India’. Jointly sponsored by Office of Global Engagement, IIT Madras and University of Zurich, Switzerland. Co-PI Dr. Johannes Quack, University of Zurich. (Rs.4 lacs).
• 2022. ‘What Nurtures the Spirit of Innovation Among Students? A Sociological Study on the Innovation Ecosystem at IIT Madras’. Exploratory Research Project sponsored by IIT Madras (Rs.9.2 lacs). Co-PI Dr. Tiju Thomas, IIT Madras.
• 2018. ‘From Cell to Society: A Study on the Social Reintegration of Released Prisoners in Kerala and Tamil Nadu’ funded by National Human Rights Commission, New Delhi. (Rs.11.2 lacs)
• 2017. ‘Religion in the Cyberspace: A Study on the Emerging Religious Cyber Sphere among the Muslim Religious Organisations in Kerala,’ Exploratory Research Project sponsored by IIT Madras. (Rs.7.26 lacs)
• 2017. ‘Democracy and Minority Citizenship: A Study on the Emerging Forms of Muslim Political Mobilisation in South India’, Research Project sponsored by Indian Council for Social Science Research. (Rs.5 lacs)
• 2014. ‘Changing Contours of State Welfarism and Emerging Citizenship: A Comparative Study of Kerala and Tamil Nadu’, Sponsored Research Programme funded by Indian Council for Social Science Research. Programme awarded to a team of researchers. (Rs.50 lacs)
• 2012. ‘Religious Activism and Palliative care in Kerala: An Analysis’, Sponsored Research Project funded by IIT Madras (Rs.5 lacs).

• 2024. International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP), a United States of America State Department sponsored visit to five cities in the US on the theme ‘Religious Freedom as Constitutional Right’ from 1^st to 20^th April 2024.
• 2023. British Academy Visiting Fellowship. University of Sussex, from 15^th August 2023 to 14^th December 2023.
• 2021. Asem Duo Visiting Fellowship. (Unavailed due to Covid Pandemic)
• 2017. Visiting Fellowship by Leibniz Zentrum Moderner, Berlin, from 1^st June to 30^th July 2017.
• 2017. Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute Award for Faculty Training and Internationalisation with the Department of Religious Studies, University of Ottawa, Canada, from 1^st May to 30^th May 2017.
• 2015. Summer School Fellowship at Institute for Critical Social Inquiry, New School for Social Research, New York, USA. One week seminar with Prof. Talal Asad on ‘Secularism’.
• 2015. Prof. M. N. Srinivas Award for the best Ph.D. thesis in Sociology, constituted by Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore.

Journal Articles

• Kumar, K., & Santhosh, R. (2024). Caste, neoliberalism and entrepreneurship in India: A sociological mapping. Sociological Bulletin, 74(1), 79–97. https://doi.org/10.1177/00380229241306088
• Dayal Paleri and R. Santhosh. (2023). Elections can wait! Politics of Constructing Hindu Atmosphere in Kerala, South India. Modern Asian Studies.Pp1-33.
  https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X23000197
• R.Santhosh.2022. Churning of Muslim Politics in Kerala. Seminar. Issue 758. (Pp 46-50) October.
  https://www.india-seminar.com/semframe.html
• R. Santhosh and Emil Mathew. 2022. Social Reintegration of Released Prisoners: An Empirical Analysis from Two Indian States. International Annals of Criminology. Vol.59, Issue 2. pp-200-222. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/cri.2021.18
• Santhosh and Dayal Paleri. 2021. Crisis of Secularism and Changing Contours of Minority Politics in India: Lessons from the Analysis of a Muslim Political Organization. Asian Survey. Vol.61. Issue 6. pp. 999–1027. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/as.2021.1433091
• Naseef MK and R. Santhosh.2021. Waqf and Authority Dynamics: Reconfigurations of a Pious Institution in Colonial Malabar. Society and Culture in South Asia.   Volume 8, Issue 1. pp. 51-71. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/23938617211046163
• M. S. Visakh, R. Santhosh and P. K. Mohammad Roshan.2021. “Islamic Traditionalism in a Globalising World: Sunni Muslim Identity in Kerala, South India”, Modern Asian Studies. Vol.55, Issue 6. pp.2046-2087. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X20000347
• R. Santhosh and Dayal Paleri.2020. “Ethnicisation of Religion in Practice? Recasting Competing Communal Mobilisation in Coastal Karnataka, South India”, Ethnicities. Vol. 21, Issue 3. pp. 563-588. DOI: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1468796820974502
• Nandan, Aniket and R. Santhosh.2020. “Associational Structures and Beyond: A Study of Bhumihar Caste Associations in Bihar, India”, Journal of Historical Sociology. Vol. 33, Issue 4. pp. 665-680. DOI: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/johs.12304​
• R. Santhosh and M. S. Visakh. 2020. “Muslim League in Kerala: Exploring the Question of ‘Being Secular’”, Economic and Political Weekly, LV (7): 50-57. https://www.epw.in/journal/2020/7/special-articles/muslim-league-kerala.html
• Nandan, Aniket and R. Santhosh. 2019. “Exploring the Changing Forms of Caste-Violence: A Study of Bhumihars in Bihar, India”, European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology, Vol 6, Issue 4. pp 421-47.  DOI:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23254823.2019.1668282
• Ashni, A. L. and R. Santhosh. 2019. “Catholic Church, Fishers and Negotiating Development: A Study on the Vizhinjam Port Project”, Review of Development and Change, Vol. 24, Issue2. pp.187–204. DOI: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0972266119883165
• R. Santhosh. 2016. “Voluntarism and Civil Society in the Neoliberal Era: A Study on the Palliative Care Movement in Kerala”, Journal of Social Change and Development, Vol.18, Issues 1-2, pp.1-18. DOI: 10.1007/s40847-016-0024-9
• R. Santhosh. 2013. “Contextualising Islamic Contestations; Reformism, Traditionalism and Modernity among Muslims of Kerala”, Indian Anthropologist. Vol.43, Issue 2. pp 25-42.

• R.Santhosh. 2023. “Muslims in Contemporary India: Socio-religious Diversity and the Questions of Citizenship” in Handbook on Contemporary India, Knut A Jacobsen (ed) Routledge, London: Routledge Publication. (Revised Edition).
• M. S. Visakh and R. Santhosh. 2023. “Islam, Development and Neoliberal Globalisation: Transformation of a Traditionalist Muslim Organisation in Kerala” in Muslim Marginalities and Development Promises in Fazal Tanweer, Divya Vaid and Surinder S. Jodkha (ed.), New Delhi: Routledge Publication.
• Santhosh. 2020. “Religious Activism and Secular Ethos: A Study on Islamic Activism in Kerala” in Multiple Secularities; Anthropological Perspectives on Religion in India, Sudha Sitharaman and Anindita Chakrabarti (ed.), New Delhi: Routledge Publications.
• Santhosh. 2018. “Beyond the Binaries of the Secular and the Islamic: Muslim Women’s Voices in Contemporary India” in Postsecular Feminisms: Religion and Gender in Transnational Context, Nandini Deo (ed.) London: Bloomsbury Publications.
• Santhosh. 2015. “Muslims in Contemporary India: Socio-religious Diversity and the Questions of Citizenship” in Handbook on Contemporary India, Knut A Jacobsen (ed) Routledge, London: Routledge Publication.
• Santhosh. 2015. “Islamic Activism and Palliative Care: An Analysis from Kerala” in Religion and Politics of Development, Philip Fountain, Robin Bush and R. Michael Feener (ed.), New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Santhosh and Shaji Varghese. 2010. “New Locations and New Articulations: Practice of Sociology in an Autonomous Institution” in Practices in Sociology: A Handbook, Maitrayee Chaudhuri (ed.), New Delhi: Rawat Publications.
• Santhosh. 2009. “The State and Religious Contestations over Human Body: A Study on Hook-Swinging and Production of New Human Subjects” in The Body in Asia, Bryan S. Turner and Zheng Yangwen (ed.), Oxford: Berghahn books.

• Muhammadali P Kasim (2020). Muhammadali worked on the questions related to Muslim masculinities in Kerala
• Aniket Nandan (2021). Aniket analysed the changing dynamics of Bhumihar caste associations in contemporary Bihar
• Muhammad Roshan (2021). Roshan explored questions related to Prophetic love among Kerala Muslims.
  
• Naseef MK. Naseef analysed the historical as well as contemporary contestations related to the institution of Waqf in Kerala.
• Dayal Paleri (2024). Dayal’s thesis explored the question of communal harmony in Kerala
• Kiran Kumar (2025). Caste and Entrepreneurship in the Neoliberal Economy: A Case Study of Gauda Saraswat Brahmins in Kerala, South India

• Fathima RF
• Neethu S Biju
• Navaneeth H
• Amruthraj
• Sashwat RS

• Delivered a lecture titled ‘Ideological and Political Implications in Social Science Research’ at Madras Christian College on 18^th March 2025.
• Delivered a lecture titled ‘Theory and Method: Transformations in Social Science Research’ in a workshop organised by the Department of Sociology, Hyderabad Central University on 6^th March 2025.
• Presented a paper titled ‘The New in the New Atheism: Interrogating the drivers and dynamics of an emerging atheist movement in Kerala, South India’ at Atheism Explained? Capstone Conference of Explaining Atheism Programme, Oxford University, 26-29, June 2024.
• Presented a paper titled ‘Communal Harmony as Performance: Understanding Inter-religious Dynamics in Kerala’ on
  24th January 2024 in a seminar organized by the Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster at National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore
• Delivered the Sussex Development Lecture titled ‘Religious Communities, Nation-state and Development: Insights from South India’ on
  6th December 2023 at the Institute for Development Studies, Sussex University, UK.
• Delivered an invited talk titled ‘Communal Harmony as a Performance: Understanding Inter-religious Dynamics in Kerala, South India’ on
  17th November 2023 at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo, Norway.
• Presented a paper (with Dayal Paleri) titled ‘Godless’ Communists in God’s Own Country. The Communist Party and Its Strategic Ambiguity towards Belief and Non-Belief in Kerala, South India on 13th November 2023 in a conference jointly organised by Explaining Atheism and Centre d’etude en sciences sociales du religieux in Paris, France.
• Presented a paper (with Visakh MS) titled ‘Exploring Islamicate Translocality: Mobilities and Identities of Traditionalist Muslims in Kerala, South India’ on 26th October 2023 at a conference organised by Ibn Haldun University, Istanbul, Turkey.
• Presented an invited talk titled ‘A Goddess and a Muslim Saint: The Emerging Discourses on Communal Harmony in Kerala, South India’ on the
  17th of October 2023 at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Zurich University, Zurich, Switzerland.
• Presented a paper titled ‘A Goddess and a Muslim Saint: The Emerging Discourses on Communal Harmony in Kerala, South India’ on
  11th October 2023 at the Asia Centre seminar series, Sussex University, UK
• Acted as a discussant for the annual South Asian Anthropological Group annual conference held between the 14th and
  16th of September 2023 at SOAS, London, UK
• Presented a paper titled ‘Religion, Politics and Substantive Secularism: The Case of the Muslim League in Kerala’ in a research workshop organised on ‘Indian Conceptions of Multiculturalism’ at IIT Tirupati on 8th and 9th January 2020.
• Presented a paper titled ‘Ethnic Democracy in Practice? Hindutva and Citizenship Discourse in Coastal Karnataka, South India’ in Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship Twentieth Anniversary Conference organised by University of Bristol on 8-10, November 2019.
• Presented a paper titled ‘Boundary Demarcation and Coalescence between the Religious and the Secular: The Case of a ‘Secular’ Muslim Organisation in India’ on 5th October 2018 in a conference by the research group ‘Multiple Secularities: Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities’, Leipzig University, Germany.

• Presented a paper titled ‘Traditionalism and Development: The Case of Sunni Muslims in Kerala’ in a conference organised by the Centre for Study of Social System, JNU on 7th and 8th December 2017.
• Participated in a panel discussion on ‘Civil Society and Conflict Resolution in the Context of increasing Intolerance and Fundamentalism’ organised by the Department of Sociology, Loyola College on 28th November 2017.
• Presented a paper titled ‘Engaging with the Secular: Some Reflections on the Contemporary Muslim Scenario in Kerala, India’ at the Centre for Advanced Studies, Leipzig University Germany on 19th July 2017.
• Presented a paper titled ‘Secularism, Secularisation and the Contemporary Muslim Situation in India’ at the Humboldt India Workshop organised by Humboldt University, Berlin on 23rd June 2017.

• Presented a paper titled ‘Contesting Modernities and Compelling Theologies: A Study on the Idea of Progress among Muslims of Kerala, South India’ on 20th June 2017 at Leibniz Centre for Modern Orient, Berlin, Germany.
• Presented a paper titled ‘Communitarian Secularism in Kerala; An Appraisal’ in a conference titled ‘Really Existing Secularism’ organized by CSDS, New Delhi on 22-23 September 2016.
• Presented a paper titled ‘Islamic Feminism in India; Some Reflections’ in a conference on ‘Feminisms Beyond the Secular: Emerging Epistemologies and Politics in 21st Century’ organised by Lehigh University, Pennsylvania, USA. March 21-23, 2016.
• Delivered a lecture on ‘Globalization and Religion’ in a one day seminar organised by Thunchathu Ezhuthachan Malayalam University in 12th November 2015.
• Presented a paper on ‘Understanding Multiple Secularism: A Perspective from Kerala’ in a conference organised by Centre for Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), New Delhi on 20-21st January 2015.
• Presented a paper on ‘Religious activism and Secular Ethos: A Study on the Role of Islamic Activism in the Palliative Care Movement in Kerala’ in a conference organised by Department of Humanities and Social Sciences in IIT Kanpur on14-15 October 2014.
• Delivered lecture on ‘Globalisation and Youth culture’ in two-day national workshop organized by the department of Sociology, Mar Athanasius College, Kothamangalam, Kerala on 21-22 August 2014.
• Participated as a resource person in a two-day workshop organized by Department of Sociology, Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, Kalady on ‘Exploring Best Practices in and for Undergraduate Sociology Programmes’ from 3-4th March 2014.
• Presented a paper titled ‘Islamic Activism and Palliative Care: An analysis from Kerala, South India’ in a conference organised by Asia Research Institute of Singapore National University, Singapore on 28 and 29 August 2013.
• Presented a paper titled ‘Islamic Activism and Health Care: A Case Study on Religion and Politics of Development from Kerala, India’ in a conference organised by St. Michael’s college, University of Toronto on 27-29th November 2013.
• Presented a paper titled ‘Islam and the question of caste in Kerala; Some reflections’ in a conference organised by Patna Collective in New Delhi on 1st and 2nd December 2012.
• Presented a paper titled ‘Radical Muslim Politics in Kerala: An Ethnographic Account’ in a conference organised by Jamia Millia Central University, New Delhi on March 13-14, 2012.
• Presented a paper titled ‘Religious Violence and Islam; Interrogating Hindu-Muslim Conflicts in Kerala, South India’, in a conference organised by Curtin University of Technology, Australia in Miri, Malaysia on 8-9 July 2010.
• Presented a paper titled ‘Local Religious Tradition of Living Together as an Alternative to Secularism: Towards an Understanding of the Politics of Hindu Communalism and Communal Harmony in Kerala, South India.’ in an annual conference of International Society for the Sociology of Religion held in University of Leipzig, Germany on July 23-27th 2007.
• Presented a paper titled ‘From Ethnic Mappila to Global Islam: Changing Articulation of Islamic Identity and the State in Kerala, South India’ in a conference organised by the Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology of Free University, Amsterdam, Netherlands on 7-8th June 2007.
• Presented a paper titled ‘The State and Religious Contestations over Human Body: A Study on Hook-Swinging and Production of New Human Subjects’ in a conference organised by Asia Research Institute of Singapore National University, Singapore on 15-17 March, 2007.

• Associate Editor, Journal of Social and Economic Development. Springer Publications.
• Member, Kerala State Higher Education Curriculum Committee, Government of Kerala (2023-till date).
• Member, Board of Studies, Post Graduate Department of Sociology, Loyola College, Chennai. (2017- till date).
• Member, Board of Studies, Post Graduate Department of Sociology, Loyola College, Thiruvananthapuram (2024-till date).
• Life Member, Indian Sociological Society.
• Member, European Association for South Asian Studies.
• Member, Board of Studies, Post Graduate Department of Sociology, University of Calicut, Calicut, Kerala. (2014-2017)
• Member, Board of Studies, Post Graduate Department of Sociology, Mar Athanasius College, Kothamangalam, Kerala. (2013-2016)

• Asian Geographer
• Contemporary Islam
• Critical Research on Religion
• Critical Asian Studies
• Democratization
• Economic and Political Weekly
• Endowment Studies
• Humanities and Social Science Communication
• India Review
• International Journal of Human Rights
• Irish Journal of Sociology
• Journal of Coastal Studies
• Journal of Contemporary Ethnography
• Journal of Historical Social Research
• Journal of Scientific Study of Religion
• Journal of Social and Economic Development
• Journal of South Asia Multidisciplinary Journal (SAMAJ)
• Nidan: International Journal for Indian Studies
• Race and Justice
• Religion, Politics and Ideology
• Review of Development and Change
• Reviewed a manuscript for Orient Blackswan
• Reviewed a manuscript for Berghahn Books