About me

Shruti is has recently obtained her PhD from the Department of International Relations at LSE. Broadly, her research is at the intersection of historical international relations theory and anticolonial women’s political thought using interpretivist archival methods. Specifically, her doctoral thesis examines how elite Indian women intellectual ideas on race, gender, empire were shaped in and through their social activism c.1920-60. Her current project draws on an eclectic range of personal, state institutional, and women’s organisational archival and primary sources in India and the UK. Through her research, Shruti has developed a keen interest in historical and feminist epistemologies and methods with a particular commitment to understanding how scholars think about the complex relationship between (intellectual) history, gendered and racialised historical subjects, and international politics.

Her recent article at Global Studies Quarterly examines the paradoxes involved in anticolonial civil-society activists’ worldmaking, through a historically and socially grounded account of prominent Indian political leader Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay’s encounters with social activism c.1920-60. You can listen to Shruti talk about her research on Indian women’s international thought at LSE’s International Women’s Day Public Lecture (2021) alongside Professor Patricia Owens and Professor Michael Cox.

Previously, Shruti co-edited Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Volume 50 and co-organised, along with Tarsis Brito and Olivia Nantermoz, Millennium’s 50^th anniversary conference on (Re)writing the International: Interrogating Histories, Imagining Futurities. Shruti has previously co-organised the LISS-DTP funded Doing International Political Sociology (DoingIPS) London PhD Seminar Series 2021-22.

Shruti is an Associate Fellow of the UK Advance Higher Education (formerly the UK Higher Education Academy). Her teaching on historical and contemporary international relations theory and historical political thought has been awarded an LSE Class Teacher High Commendation Prize (2021).

Before commencing her PhD, Shruti was a candidate of the Double Master’s in International Affairs, at Sciences Po, Paris, where she studied for an MA in International Security and at the London School of Economics, where she completed her MSc in International Relations (with Distinction). Shruti holds an undergraduate degree in Political Science (Honours) from Lady Shri Ram (LSR) College, University of Delhi. In addition, Shruti holds a postgraduate Diploma in Conflict Transformation and Peace building from the University of Delhi. Previously, Shruti has undertaken research projects for non-governmental organisations that work at an intersection of gender, justice and security such as CARE International UK (London), and the Women in Security, Conflict Management and Peace (WISCOMP, New Delhi).