Ritanjan Das is a university lecturer in contemporary South Asian politics at the Leiden University Institute of Area Studies. His primary area of interest is the political economy of development in contemporary India and South Asia. Ritanjan has conducted extensive ethnographic research in various parts of South Asia for close to two decades, and has published on various facets of development politics and socio-economic inequality in the region. His most recent work explores questions of identity, sovereignty, marginalisation and democratic deficits in South Asia. He holds a PhD in development studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and is a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy.