Valerian Rodrigues is an Indian political scientist. He is known for his influential work on Babasaheb Ambedkar, and for his formulations of themes in Modern Indian Political Thought. Rodrigues has made substantial contributions to the debate on the working of the Indian Parliament, constitutionalism in India, and agrarian politics in India. As a Professor at the Centre for Political Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, he was popular for his lectures on Indian Political Thought and Intellectual History, and critically reading the same through political concepts of modernity, secularism and nationalism.
He has held the first Ambedkar Chair at the Ambedkar University Delhi, has been an ICCR (Indian Council of Cultural Relations) Visiting Professor at the University of Erfurt Germany, a Visiting Professor at the University of Würzburg Germany, a Visiting Professor at Simon Fraser University, Canada and Fellow at the Max Weber Center for Advanced Studies, Germany.
Rodrigues is a regular political columnist and commentator with The Hindu and The Indian Express.
Rodrigues was born in Loretto, Bantwal Taluk, Karnataka on 29 July 1949. He received his MA from the University of Pune, and his M.Phil. and Ph.D. from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. As a political activist in the 1970s, he was influential in securing land titles for landless farmers and farm workers of Coastal Karnataka under the Karnataka Land Reforms (Amendment) Act, 1974.
After receiving his MA from the University of Pune, Rodrigues first taught at Sri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara College, Ujire, Karnataka. He received his PhD from the Centre for Political Studies, JNU, India, in 1986, and was Agatha Harrison Fellow at St. Anthony’s College, Oxford from 1989 to 1991. He was also a senior fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla, from 1999–2001.
Rodrigues taught Political Science at Mangalore University, Karnataka from 1982 to 2003 before moving to Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, where he was Professor of Political Studies from 2003 to 2015. He is also a National Fellow of the Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR).
He is the author of several works such as ‘The Indian Parliament: A Democracy at Work’, ‘Dalit-Bahujan Discourse in Modern India’, ‘The essential writings of BR Ambedkar’ and so on.
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