Suraj Yengde | |
---|---|
![]() Yengde in 2023 | |
Born | 1988 (age 36–37) Nanded, Maharashtra, India |
Occupations |
|
Awards |
|
Academic background | |
Education |
|
Alma mater | |
Thesis | South-south migration: an ethnographic study of an Indian business district in Johannesburg (2016) |
Doctoral advisor | |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Social Sciences |
Institutions | Harvard University |
Notable works | |
Website | www |
Suraj Milind Yengde (born 1988) is an Indian scholar and activist known for his work on caste and race. He is a W.E.B. Du Bois Fellow at Harvard University and a research associate in the Department of African and African American Studies. [3] He was named as one of the "25 Most Influential Young Indians of 2021" by GQ India.
Yengde was born in 1988 in Nanded,Maharashtra,to a Dalit Buddhist family. He earned a BSL and LLB from Nanded Law College between 2005 and 2010. [4]
Yengde earned an LLM from Birmingham City University,England (2011–2012) and interned at the United Nations Secretariat. [5] He completed a PhD in Anthropology at the University of the Witwatersrand,South Africa,in 2016,with a thesis on Indian business districts in Johannesburg. [6] He pursued further studies at the University of Oxford,focusing on caste and race. [7] In May 2025,he received his DPhil (Doctor of Philosophy) from the University of Oxford for his thesis titled Dalit-Black Worlds:An Intellectual History of Race and Caste. [8] [9]
Yengde has been a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University and a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. [10] He has published in Economic and Political Weekly and contributes to Art Review and Hindustan Times . [11] [12] [13] He appeared as himself in the 2023 biographical drama film Origin . [14] [15]
In 2018,Yengde co-edited The Radical in Ambedkar:Critical Reflections with Anand Teltumbde. [16] In 2019,he authored Caste Matters ,a book listed in The Hindu ’s "Best Non-Fiction Books of the Decade". [17] [18] The book is published in several Indian languages with the Kerala translation winning a state award for translation. [19] His new book Caste:A Global Story was published in May 2025. [20] [21]