Sunil Khilnani joined the Institute as its Director and Professor of Politics in June 2011.

Sunil Khilnani’s research interests lie at the intersection of various fields: intellectual history and the study of political thought, the history of modern India, democratic theory in relation to its recent non-Western experiences, the politics of contemporary India, and strategic thought in the definition of India’s place in the world.

Sunil Khilnani was born in New Delhi and grew up in India, Africa, and Europe. He was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he took a first in Social and Political Sciences, and at King’s College, Cambridge, where he gained his PhD in Social and Political Sciences.

Prior to becoming Director of the King’s India Institute he was, from 2001 to 2011, the Starr Foundation Professor at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington D.C., and Director of South Asia Studies at SAIS, a programme that he established in 2002.

He is completing a book on India’s global role and prospects, while he continues to research studies of Jawaharlal Nehru and the history of democracy in India – two of his long-term projects. He is the author of the outstanding workThe Idea of India. Khilnani is married to the Pulitzer Prize winning writer, Katherine Boo, who is in Melbourne to launch her book Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in the Mumbai Undercity.