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About Me

Sonali Huria is a researcher with over a decade’s experience in the area of human rights research, training, and advocacy. She has completed her PhD from Jamia Millia Islamia Central University, New Delhi. Her doctoral thesis explores the dissension between the Indian State and local communities on the question of nuclear energy, and the ruptures that this acerbic contestation and the unprecedented repression by the Indian State have engendered in the country’s democratic consensus. It explores the various facets of this contestation – from the postcolonial insecurities and impetuses of a newly independent country coinciding with the advent of the atomic age, which made the nuclear option irresistibly seductive for India’s political and scientocratic elite, to the questions of knowledge and power and the entanglements of competing knowledge systems – on the one hand, the highly valued scientific knowledge of the State, and, on the other, the local, traditional, experiential and ‘lived’ knowledge of ordinary farmers, and fisherfolk.

She recently also completed a nine-year long tenure as a researcher and investigating officer with India’s National Human Rights Commission, where her work ranged from research on international and domestic human rights laws, documentation, investigating complaints of human rights violations, to monitoring prisons and other places of detention, as well as the implementation of socio-economic flagship programmes of the Government of India across the country’s economically distressed districts.

She writes a column – ‘Nuclear Reaction’, on the political, social, environmental, and human rights issues surrounding India’s nuclear sector at TheLeaflet.in, an online magazine of India’s Lawyers’ Collective. She is also Co-Editor, DiaNuke.org, an online resource space on issues of nuclear disarmament and nuclear energy, and has taught at the Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Jamia Millia Islamia University. Her research interests include human rights, nuclear energy and its impact on local communities, particularly women, people’s resistance movements, and democracy and dissent, among others.

Recent Publications

Research Papers

• “Shrinking Spaces for Democratic Dissent: A Study of the Grassroots Anti-Nuclear Movement in India”, RWI Conference Papers Series, 2020. Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Sweden
• “India’s unyielding quest for uranium on a dangerous upswing”. 23 September 2019. Nuclear Monitor, Issue No. 878. ISSN2542-5439

Articles/Commentaries/Opinions

• “Criminalising Ecological Dissent in India”, 10 August 2020. The Ecologist. Article here
• “In a Season of Impetuous Lawmaking, whither Nuclear Safety?”, The Nuclear Reaction Series, 22 January 2020, TheLeaflet.in. Article here
• “India’s unyielding quest for uranium,” 25 November 2019, The Ecologist. Article here
• “How India is engineering nuclear landscapes through charades of green clearance,” The Nuclear Reaction Series, 04 January 2019, The Leaflet.in. Article here
• “More toxic than Rafale: Jaitapur nuclear deal, one Modi pushed on the same 2015 day in France,” The Nuclear Reaction Series, 25 October 2018, The Leaflet.in. Article here
• “Remembering the ‘anti-nationals’ of Koodankulam: Why criminalisation of dissent has a long and tortured history,” The Nuclear Reaction Series, 17 September 2018, The Leaflet.in. Article here
• “When India let Chernobyl-contaminated butter enter its kitchen,” Catch News, 29 April 2018. Article here
• “India-Bangladesh Nuclear Cooperation: Toxic tango in Rooppur needs rethinking,” 10 March 2018, New Age, Bangladesh news daily. OpEd here
• “Afghanistan: Kunduz and the Deceit of ‘Collateral Damage’” (co-authored), Mainstream Weekly, Vol LIII No. 50, 05 December 2015. ISSN No. 0542-1462. pp.23-26. Article here
• “A Plan of Action – Managing Global Insecurity,” Report No.2811. 18 February 2009. Report here
• “India and the ‘Global NATO’: Expectations and Reservations,” Article No.2790. 26 January 2009. Article here
• “US and India Give Momentous Disarmament Treaty the Go-by,” Article No.2764, 25 December 2008, IPCS. Article here
• “The ‘Right’ and Wrongs of Preemption, the US and International Law,” Article No.2642, 5 August 2008, IPCS. Article here
• “Cluster Munitions Ban Treaty: The Challenges Ahead,” Article No.2579, 29 May 2008, IPCS. Article here
• “Kosovo Crisis: No End in Sight,” Article No.2507. 05 March 2008. Article here

Issue Briefs/Special Reports

• “Failed States and Foreign Military Intervention: The Afghanistan Imbroglio,” IPCS Special Report 67, March 2009. Special Report here
• “War on Terrorism in South Asia: Af-Pak and Beyond,” IPCS Issue Brief No.108, June 2009. Issue Brief here
• “Failing and Failed States: The Global Discourse,” IPCS Issue Brief 75, July 2008. Issue Brief here

Books/Monographs

• A Handbook on International Human Rights Conventions. 2012. New Delhi: National Human Rights Commission
• Radical Islam and Democracy: Indian and Southeast Asian Experiences. 2009. New Delhi: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (Co-edited)
• Not in the name of Climate Change: People in India resist nuclear power. 2017. DiaNuke.org. New Delhi: Indilogues (Ed.)

Chapters in Books

• “Thematic Comparison of Legislations III” in PR Chari (ed.) Indo-US Nuclear Deal: Seeking Synergy in Bilateralism (Revised Edition). ISBN-13: 9780415625791. New Delhi: Taylor & Francis. 2012.
• “War by Other Means: Attacks on Embassies and Foreign Nationals in South Asia” in D Suba Chandran and Jabin T Jacob (eds.) India’s Foreign Policy: Old Problems, New Challenges. ISBN 9780230332300 New Delhi: Macmillan Publishers India. 2011.
• “Failed and Failing States and Armed Conflict in South Asia” in PR Chari and D Suba Chandran (eds.) Armed Conflicts in South Asia 2009: Continuing Violence, Failing Peace Processes. ISBN-13: 978-0415564441. New Delhi: Routledge India. 2010.
• “Thematic Comparison of Legislations II” in PR Chari (ed.) Indo-US Nuclear Deal: Seeking Synergy in Bilateralism. ISBN 9780415625791. New Delhi: Taylor & Francis. 2009.

Book Reviews

• [FORTHCOMING] Review of Carl Benedikt Frey. 2019. The Technology Trap: Capital, Labour, and Power in the Age of Automation. NJ: Princeton University Press. International Social Science Review (ISSR). Vol.96: Issue 4 (2021)
• [FORTHCOMING] “Rethinking violence and equality through Judith Butler’s frame of ‘grievability’”, NIU International Journal of Human Rights, Vol.7 (November 2020). Review of Judith Butler. 2020. The Force of Non-Violence: An Ethico-Political Bind. London: Verso
• “Fears of Anarchy?” The Book Review Journal, Vol. XXXV No. 8-9, Aug-Sep 2011. Review of T. V. Paul (Ed.). 2011. South Asia’s Weak States: Understanding the Regional Insecurity Predicament. Oxford University Press: New Delhi.
• “Re-envisioning Peace”, The Book Review Journal, Vol. XXXIII, No.3, March 2009. Review of Ujjwal Kumar Singh (ed.). 2009. Human Rights and Peace: Ideas, Laws, Institutions and Movements. Sage: New Delhi.
• “Reconceptualizing Civil Society”, Review of David N. Gellner (ed.) Ethnic Activism and Civil Society in South Asia: Governance, Conflict, and Civic Action: Volume 2. Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies.

Media Coverage

Interviews given to (1) McGill Tribune, University of McGill, (2) La Demi Heure Radio Active, France, (3) Réseau Sortir du nucléaire, France

Social Media

@HuriaSonali

Country Focus

India

Expertise by Geography

Asia, India

Expertise by Chronology

Early Modern, Modern, 20th century, 21st century

Expertise by Topic

Colonialism, Environment, Gender, Human Rights, Law, Migration & Immigration, Politics, Technology, Urban History, Women