Kiruba Munusamy
Primary mentor: Professor Philip Leach
Second mentor: Professor Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos
Research topic title: Transforming Institutional Justice for Caste-Based Discrimination and Violence
Research project description:
This Post-Doctoral Fellowship focuses on strengthening institutional and legal responses to caste-based discrimination and violence by translating rigorous socio-legal research into academic, policy, and public-facing outputs. The project builds on the doctoral thesis In the Interests of Justice: Cases of Caste Violence in the Supreme Court of India, which offers a systematic, time-bound analysis of how India’s highest court adjudicates cases of caste-based violence. By demonstrating that the persistent failure to deliver justice to oppressed castes is structural rather than episodic, the research provides critical insights into the limitations of existing legal frameworks and their role in reinforcing their systematic exclusion and marginalisation.
A key component of the project is the consolidation of the doctoral thesis into a monograph to be published with a leading academic press. The monograph will contribute original scholarship to debates on caste, access to justice, and judicial accountability, offering a sustained legal analysis that complements and extends existing literature on caste and the Indian judiciary. To ensure wider dissemination beyond traditional academic audiences, the project includes the publication of a commissioned collaborative blog series with the Oxford Human Rights Hub. Co-authored with scholars and practitioners working on caste-related issues, the blog posts examine caste discrimination within the framework of international human rights law and its implementation.
The project places strong emphasis on stakeholder engagement and international advocacy through collaboration with the International Dalit Solidarity Network (IDSN), a leading global organisation addressing caste-based discrimination in South Asia and the diaspora. Through this partnership, the project engages directly with global policy processes by participating in sessions of the multilateral institutions such as the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva and the European Union Human Rights Forum in Brussels.
In collaboration with IDSN, the project undertakes a scoping exercise to map existing international advocacy strategies, mechanisms, and campaigns addressing caste-based discrimination. This includes reviewing international human rights monitoring systems, establishing key contacts, and analysing advocacy approaches through participation in UN and EU forums. The insights gained from this mapping exercise are planned to be developed into an academic article, contributing to scholarship on the relationship between human rights advocacy, policy engagement, and legal reform.
Building on its focus on India, the project develops future research on caste-based discrimination in Nepal. In collaboration with IDSN and its regional partners, the project develops competitive funding proposals for major research funders such as the ESRC, Leverhulme Trust, and Nuffield Foundation. This work expands the geographical and thematic scope of my doctoral research by examining how legal institutions in Nepal address caste-based discrimination and identifying pathways for more effective legal and policy interventions. The project further facilitates advanced research training and strengthening expertise in data management, research ethics, qualitative analysis, and knowledge exchange, alongside interdisciplinary collaboration with the Social Policy Research Centre.
Together, the project forms an integrated dissemination and impact strategy that bridges academic research with policy and practice by engaging scholars, policymakers, advocacy organisations, and affected communities, while informing legal and policy reform and contributing to transformative interventions at national and global levels.
Publications:
Kiruba Munusamy, ‘The Dynamics of Federalism in the Constitution of India’, South Asia@LSE, 15 September 2025, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/2025/09/15/the-dynamics-of-federalism-in-the-constitution-of-india/
Kiruba Munusamy, ‘The Legal Basis for Affirmative Action in India’, WIDER Working Paper No. 2022/74, The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), July 2022, https://doi.org/10.35188/UNU-WIDER/2022/205-8
Kiruba Munusamy, ‘Caste and Judiciary in India’, The Dalit Truth: The Battles for Realising Ambedkar’s Vision, Penguin Random House India, 2022, pp.38-56
Kiruba Munusamy, ‘Caste, Domestic Violence and the Pandemic: The Dysfunctional State Protection’, The Gendered Contagion: Perspectives on Domestic Violence during COVID-19, Gender, Human Rights and Law, the Centre for Women and the Law, National Law School of India, Volume 7, April 2021
Kiruba Munusamy, Intersection of Identities: Online Gender and Caste based Violence, GenderIT.org, 7 June 2018
Planned publication: ‘In the Interests of (In)Justice’: Adjudication of Caste Violence in the Supreme Court of India’ (monograph under review)
Caste-based Discrimination and the International Human Rights Law and Politics (Blogseries), Oxford Human Rights Hub (Forthcoming)
Caste-based Discrimination and the Advocacy Strategies in the International Human Rights Forums
Role of the International Human Rights Law in Combatting Caste-based Discrimination
Designation of India as a ‘safe country’ and the challenges faced by Indian asylum seekers in the United Kingdom
Contact details:
Email: kirubagmunusamy@gmail.com
Institution Link: https://www.mdx.ac.uk/about-us/our-people/staff-directory/dr-kiruba-munusamy/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kiruba-munusamy/
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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kirubamunusamy/
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