Rising power, precarious citizens: Mobility and democracy in India after 1989

On March 25, 2020, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed the world’s largest lockdown in a bid to stem the threat of COVID 19. The stringent lockdown triggered a mass exodus from cities across India, with panic-stricken people desperately trying to leave for their homes in villages, walking over hundreds if not thousands of kilometres. Who were these men, women and children streaming out of India’s cities? Why did they feel compelled to leave the economic engines of among the world’s fastest growing economies and return to their rural homes?

Jacob Keesing Ostfeld

I am interested in why social class matters for political theory. What different classes exist, what relations exist between them, and why might it matter? I am currently writing a thesis entitled "Do Laboring Classes Exploit Each Other?," which seeks to elaborate potentially exploitative and dominating relations among workers. Prior to studying at Oxford, I received my BA from Harvard University in Government in 2023.

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