Pratim Ghosal

Pratim Ghosal is a DPhil candidate in International Development. Previously he completed a BA in Political Science from Presidency College, Kolkata, India and an MA and MPhil in Political Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.

He is broadly interested in studying the relationship between business and politics in the South Asian context. In researching a key aspect of this broad area, he takes an interdisciplinary approach that draws insights from the fields of comparative politics, development studies, political economy, and political sociology. For his ongoing doctoral research, he uses a qualitative and bottom-up research design and zooms in on a fast-transforming urban context to examine the making and workings of a compact between businesses and Hindu Nationalist politics in contemporary India. His research aims to further our understanding of the evolving relationship between business and politics in India, especially in the context of a dominant right-wing party’s ascendance to power. His work engages with and speaks to similar contexts in the contemporary global south.  

His doctoral research has been supported by the Felix Trust, University of Oxford. He has also received research grants and funding from St Edmund Hall, Oxford Department of International Development and the India Oxford Initiative (IndOx).