Promoting Diverse Scholarship
We recognize that experiences of the Constitution and Constitution making are intertwined with individual identity. A core mission of TEP is to platform the voices of individuals from marginalized communities. To achieve this, we instituted the Dakshayini Velayudhan and Hasrat Mohani Fellowship . The fellowships offer a stipend and research guidance for one student from the Scheduled Caste/Schedule Tribe community and one student from the Muslim community to build on scholarship on constitutional history. We encourage fellows to explore non-academic outputs that can engage a wide audience.
2025 Fellows
Gandhi Riyang
Gandhi Riyang was our Dakshayini Velayudhan fellow for 2025. Gandhi is a postgraduate of International Relations at South Asian University, New Delhi. He has researched on Arunachal Pradesh’s tribal culture and heritage as well as the construction of sub-nationalism in Arunachal Pradesh.
Through this fellowship, he has explored the negotiations around Article 371H, its distinctiveness as a special provision and how it continues to affect indigenous communities in Arunachal Pradesh.
Asra Hamid Rashid
Asra was our Hasrat Mohani fellow for 2025. She is a 4th year law student at NUJS,Kolkata. She is interested in the intersection of literature, politics and society. She has worked with multiple legal aid organisations.
Through this fellowship, she has examined the ‘Constitutional Politics of the State Nomenclature’. She looked at the debates within the Constituent Assembly in the background of a multilingual India (as well as public debates sanctioned by it) to understand the politics of the naming of states and their evolution. She especially focussed on Uttar Pradesh and Odisha to understand the hierarchies of identity, expressed through language.
Khalil ur Rehaman
Khalil was our second Hasrat Mohani fellow of 2025. He has graduated from the Karnataka State Law University’s Law School. He is keenly interested in caste politics and social justice and is committed to understanding constitutional law, affirmative action policies and rights of marginalised communities
Through this fellowship, he examined with the 1950 Presidential Order and traced the debates within the Constituent Assembly (and outside of it) regarding reservations for Dalit Muslims and Dalit Christians and the impact it had on those communities. He has engaged in extensive fieldwork along with archival and historical research throughout the duration of the fellowship.
Previous Fellows
Kundan Kumar Chaudhary
Kundan was our 2024 Dakshayini Velayudhan fellow for Constitutional History. He is a third-year law student at Campus Law Centre, University of Delhi. Kundan has been associated with various grassroot movements and initiatives that popularise constitutional values among citizens. During the fellowship, he explored the constitutional history of fiscal federalism, particularly in the context of Dr.Ambedkar’s views as well as the current trends of fiscal federalism in India.
Afrah Asif
Afrah was our 2024 Hasrat Mohani fellow for Constitutional history. She is a graduate of NALSAR University, Afrah focussed on studying the Uniform Civil Code from the perspective of Muslim Minority Rights and Feminism. She explored the UCC’s impact on gender equality, community norms and minority rights.