About Prof. Amit Kumar Sharma
Amit Kumar Sharma is a senior sociologist, Indologist, public intellectual, and writer whose academic and intellectual career spans more than three decades. Since the beginning of his professional journey in the early 1990s, he has worked across the domains of sociology, Indian civilisation studies, cultural theory, cinema studies, and Gandhian thought, gradually evolving into a distinctive philosophical voice engaging with the civilizational questions of contemporary India.
He is currently Professor at the Centre for the Study of Social Systems (CSSS), School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, where he has been teaching since 1999. He has also held significant academic and administrative responsibilities at JNU, including leadership roles in interdisciplinary and national security–oriented institutions. Earlier in his career, he taught sociology at Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi, and at the postgraduate department of Sociology at Janta Vedic College, CCS University, Meerut.
Prof. Sharma received his M.A. in Sociology from the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, and completed both his M.Phil. and Ph.D. at Jawaharlal Nehru University under the supervision of Prof. Patricia Uberoi and Prof. Yogendra Singh. His doctoral work, grounded in field-based sociology, examined kinship, symbolism, and identity in rural North India, laying the foundation for his later engagement with Indian civilisation, religion, and cultural systems.
As a scholar, his core areas of interest include Sociology of Civilisations, Indology, Sociology of Religion, Cinema and Culture in India, sociological theory, Indian knowledge traditions, and the study of war, peace, and national security from a civilizational perspective. His work is marked by an effort to place Indian social realities within their own cultural and philosophical frameworks, while remaining in dialogue with global sociological thought.
Prof. Sharma is the author of more than a dozen books in English and Hindi, and has published over two hundred articles, essays, and columns across academic journals, edited volumes, and public platforms. His writings engage themes ranging from Indian cinema, religion, and culture to Gandhian philosophy, modernity, globalisation, and the challenges facing contemporary civilisation. A bilingual scholar, he writes regularly in both Hindi and English, addressing academic as well as wider public audiences.
Beyond the university, he has been an active participant in the public sphere, contributing to debates on Indian politics, culture, cinema, religion, and the emerging global order through lectures, seminars, workshops, media discussions, and digital platforms. He has supervised a large number of doctoral and M.Phil. theses, mentoring generations of scholars working on Indian society, culture, religion, cinema, and social theory.
Through his teaching, writing, and public engagement, Prof. Amit Kumar Sharma continues to work toward a deeper sociological and civilizational understanding of India—one that is rooted in indigenous intellectual traditions while remaining critically engaged with the modern world.
