Academic Scholarship

My academic interests focus on colonialism, decolonization, Islam, governance, state-building, and the modern nation-state.

I look at the formation of the nation-state and its inherent relationship to processes of colonization, especially during what is often touted as the (post) colonial period.

In particular, I examine how a nation-state like India utilizes discourses of development, progress, state-building, and secularism to further its colonial ambitions.

My work on Kashmir as well as American Muslim/diasporic communities continues to examine the ways in which ‘native informants’ or ‘indigenous elites’ serve as collaborators, compradors, or client regimes to imperial and colonial formations.

I am interested in the subjectivities of those who decide to take part in these formations, as well as the multiple ways in which the state entrenches itself in the lives of colonized or marginalized communities through discourses of empowerment, development, normalization, feminism, and in the context of the US, interfaith relations.

My work also examines how state planning and policies seek to disrupt Muslim political aspirations and self-determination and what resistance looks like under such circumstances.