Kalpana Kannabiran

Kalpana Kannabiran is a sociologist and legal scholar based in Hyderabad, India. Over the past three decades, Prof. Kannabiran has co-founded and worked with Asmita Resource Centre for Women (1991-2021), was part of the founding faculty of NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad, where she taught sociology and law (1999-2009), and retired as Professor and Regional Director, Council for Social Development, Hyderabad (2011-2021). She is currently Distinguished Professor, Council for Social Development, New Delhi and has completed a three-year term as Civil Society Advisory Governor (Asia Region), Commonwealth Foundation, London, January 2020—December 2022.

Prof. Kannabiran received her Ph.D. in sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University, and an L.L.M. from Postgraduate College of Law, Osmania University. She was Rockefeller Humanist-in-Residence at the Women’s Studies Program, Hunter College, City University of New York in 1992-93, and is recipient of the VKRV Rao Prize for Social Science Research (2003) and the Amartya Sen Award for Distinguished Social Scientists (2012) for her work in the field of law.

Between 2007 and 2008, she was member of the Expert Group on the Equal Opportunity Commission, Government of India and the Expert Group on Legal Education Reform in Kerala, Government of Kerala, both chaired by the late Prof. N.R. Madhava Menon.

Kalpana Kannabiran has published widely across the fields of law, gender and sexuality studies, and sociology. Her widely acclaimed book Tools of Justice: Non-Discrimination and the Indian Constitution (Routledge, 2012) was the first to open out a comprehensive, interdisciplinary, intersectional exploration of the fundamental right to non-discrimination in India. A compilation of her public writing in The Hindu, The Wire, and Scroll is published as Law, Justice and Human Rights in India: Short Reflections (Orient BlackSwan, 2021). She has translated and edited The Speaking Constitution: A Sisyphean Life in Law by K.G. Kannabiran (HarperCollins 2022), and has edited Law, Justice and Society: Selected Works by Upendra Baxi, Volume 3: Law and Society (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2024).