Sumantra Bose
Sumantra Bose is a globally known political scientist who works on the intersections of nationalism, democracy and conflict in the Indian subcontinent, the Balkans region of Europe, and the Middle East. He is a prolific author and active media commentator.
Boona After Dayton
Secular States, Religious Politics
Contested Lands
Transforming India
Boona After Dayton
Secular States, Religious Politics
Contested Lands
Transforming India
Recent Books
Kashmir at the Crossroads:
Inside a 21st-Century Conflict
(Yale University Press and Picador India, 2021, updated Picador India paperback, 2024)
An authoritative, fresh, and vividly written account of the Kashmir conflict – from 1947 to the present. The India–Pakistan dispute over Kashmir is one of the world’s most incendiary conflicts. In decades of confrontation, at least 60,000 people have been killed – insurgents, civilians, and military and police personnel. In 2019, the dispute entered a dangerous new phase.
India’s Hindu nationalist government, under Narendra Modi, repealed Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir’s autonomous status and divided it into two territories subject to New Delhi’s direct rule. The drastic move was accompanied by mass arrests and lengthy suspension of mobile and internet services.
Publications
Book
Kashmir at the Crossroads:
Inside a 21st -Century Conflict
(Yale University Press, 2021)
An authoritative, fresh, and vividly written account of the Kashmir conflict – from 1947 to the present. The book has also been published in an India edition by Pan Macmillan, under the Picador imprint.
Book
Secular States, Religious Politics:
India, Turkey, and the Future of Secularism
(Cambridge University Press, 2018)
A comparative study of the rise, evolution and decline of secularism as a core principle of the state in its two major non-Western contexts—India and Turkey. 380pp
News & Podcasts
Sumantra Bose discusses his work on conflict, identity, territory and history (2026)
(Cambridge University Press, 2018)
A comparative study of the rise, evolution and decline of secularism as a core principle…
Sumantra Bose discusses the perils of war and the prospects of peace in the Indian subcontinent (2026)
(Cambridge University Press, 2018)
A comparative study of the rise, evolution and decline of secularism as a core principle…
Sumantra Bose
Sumantra Bose was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India on 7 June 1968 to Sisir Kumar Bose, a doctor, and Krishna Bose, a professor and writer. He grew up in Calcutta, where he studied for twelve years at the St. Xavier’s Collegiate School.
In the late 1980s, he went to the United States for higher studies. In May 1992, he graduated from Amherst College, Massachusetts, with a summa cum laude (highest honours), and was elected to the US’s national academic honours society, Phi Beta Kappa. Sumantra majored in political science at Amherst, with informal minors in history and economics. His senior honours thesis was awarded the Densmore Berry Collins Prize for the best thesis in political science.
Sumantra Bose
Sumantra Bose was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India on 7 June 1968 to Sisir Kumar Bose, a doctor, and Krishna Bose, a professor and writer. He grew up in Calcutta, where he studied for twelve years at the St. Xavier’s Collegiate School.
Sumantra Bose was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India on 7 June 1968 to Sisir Kumar Bose, a doctor, and Krishna Bose, a professor and writer. He grew up in Calcutta, where he studied for twelve years at the St. Xavier’s Collegiate School.
Sumantra Bose
Sumantra Bose was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India on 7 June 1968 to Sisir Kumar Bose, a doctor, and Krishna Bose, a professor and writer. He grew up in Calcutta, where he studied for twelve years at the St. Xavier’s Collegiate School.
Sumantra Bose
Sumantra Bose was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India on 7 June 1968 to Sisir Kumar Bose, a doctor, and Krishna Bose, a professor and writer. He grew up in Calcutta, where he studied for twelve years at the St. Xavier’s Collegiate School.
