Laurence Gautier

Laurence Gautier is a historian of contemporary South Asia. She earned her PhD from the University of Cambridge. Her research explores what it means to be a minority citizen in a postcolonial secular nation-state. Gautier focuses on Indian Muslims, who form the largest Muslim minority in the world in a famously diverse society. Her first monograph, Between Nation and ‘Community’. Muslim Universities and Indian Politics after Partition (Cambridge University Press, 2024), examines the debates on Muslims’ location in post-partition India through the lens of two prominent Muslim universities, Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia. It shows that these educational institutions played a pivotal role in the wider discussions on national integration, secularism, minority rights, Muslim backwardness and women’s status among Muslims. Gautier also co-edited Historicizing Sayyid-ness: Social Status and Muslim Identity in South Asia (JRAS, 2020) with Julien Levesque. This special issue examines social dynamics and hierarchies of status among South Asian Muslims through the notion of “Sayyid” (descendants of the Prophet and of his Companions). Before joining FRIAS, Gautier was Assistant and then Associate Professor at O.P. Jindal Global University, near Delhi. She also held a four-year position as Researcher in “Documenting Democracy: History, Politics and Citizenship”, at the Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH, New Delhi).