Indian political theorist, writer, and human rights activist, Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd, is best known for working towards the annihilation of caste and the promotion of social justice. His M.A. and M.Phil. are in Political Science from Osmania University, where he went on to earn his Ph.D. in 1985 for research on the political dimension of Buddhism (God as Political Philosopher: Buddha’s Challenge to Brahminism, Sage Publications, Delhi, India). Other notable works by him include Why I Am Not a Hindu, Buffalo Nationalism, and Post-Hindu India.
Started his teaching career as a Lecturer in the Department of Political Science at Osmania University in 1979, he rose to the rank of Professor in 1994 and continued to serve there until 2006, when he was appointed the Director of the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy at Maulana Azad National Urdu University.
He has been invited to speak at universities such as: California Berkeley, Columbia, Harvard, Oxford, and Toronto, as well as at the UN conference against Racism, Racial discrimination, and Xenophobia in Durban (South Africa) in 2001, and at the at the World Social Forum in 2004. He has received several awards for his work, including the Mahatma Jyotirao Phule Award and the Manyawar Kanshiram Smriti Mahanayak Puraskar
His autobiography has been praised as “a valuable political, social, and anthropological document. For those who want to understand India from below and beyond Gandhi, yoga, and Bollywood, From a Shepherd Boy to an Intellectual is an indispensable resource” – Subhas Yadav, University of Hyderabad, India, reviewing the memoir in World Literature Today (USA).
Dr Shepherd’s latest book is The Shudra Rebellion.