Before joining NALSAR, Professor Sitaraman Kakarala taught at Azim Premji University for nearly ten years. Prior to that, he taught at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, from 1993 to 2004, in various roles, and served as a Senior Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore, from 2004 to 2013, including a term as Director of the centre from 2008 to 2011.
Professor Kakarala was a Visiting Professor at the National Law University, Delhi, during 2012 and 2013, and briefly served as Visiting Professor at the School of Policy and Governance, Azim Premji University, from March to May 2014. Additionally, he was the Vice Chancellor of Glocal University from June 2014 to April 2015.
During these years, he taught various courses in interdisciplinary legal studies, political theory, law and culture, human rights law, comparative law, and comparative constitutionalism.
Professor Kakarala’s research interests include understanding postcolonial constitutionalism, especially developments related to the languages of human rights in the global South, as well as contemporary social and legal theory and comparative studies.
He completed his Ph.D in Political Science at the Centre for Social Studies, Surat, an LL.M in Human Rights Law from the University of Nottingham, and an M.A in Political Philosophy from the University of Madras.
Professor Kakarala was a recipient of the British Chevening Fellowship in Human Rights Law (1995-96), and the Commonwealth Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Human Rights Law (2000-01 at the Warwick Law School). He was a Fellow at the Nantes Institute of Advanced Studies, Nantes, France, in 2009 & 2017.