UC Professor Awarded Prestigious Fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies

University of Cincinnati Assistant Professor of Political Science Rina Williams was been awarded a prestigious fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies, the premier institution for funding scholarship and research of the subcontinent. Williams will travel to India next summer to continue her research into the role of women in politics in the world’s largest democracy.

Williams spent

five months in India

in 2013 exploring the role of women in India’s Bharatiya Janata Party, the country’s largest political party. The BJP, also known as the Indian People’s Party, is a nationalist party with strong religious ties to the Hindu community – the dominant religion of the country. Economically liberal, but socially conservative, the party has had a complicated relationship with the role of women in public life. Although women are accepted in the BJP, with some even rising to leadership positions, they are by and large segregated into a separate wing of the party.

Earlier this year, the BJP won an absolute majority in national parliamentary elections – the first time a party has done so since 1984 – ousting the long-dominant Indian National Congress. Armed with this new political mandate, it remains to be seen how far the BJP will pursue the social, legal, and economic reforms espoused in the party’s platform.

Williams will return to India next June, travelling to the national capital New Delhi, as well as Lucknow, capital of India’s largest state and the base of the BJP’s support. She plans to reconnect with sources she worked with last year in order to get an on-the-ground perspective of how the BJP is adapting to its new role, and in particular the extent to which women are sharing in and shaping the party’s future.

Williams plans to share her findings in a new book exploring the evolving role of women in politics in India and beyond.