Courses taught:

 University of Toronto Mississauga, undergraduate level courses.

• POL 218 Y5Y: Introduction to Comparative Politics (year long course, co-taught with Kristin Cavoukian), Fall 2020.  

  • description: This course introduces students to the field of Comparative Politics by using a textbook and also research articles. Topics include state formationm causes of democratization, forms of authoritarian governments, ethnic identity and conflict, civil war and insurgency and political violence, political economy of development. Students have to write exams as well as write research papers on topics of their choice.

• POL 304 Y5Y: Politics of South Asia (year long course). Fall 2014-Spring 2015, Spring 2016 (taught intensively in one semester), Fall 2016 - Spring 2017, Fall 2017- Spring 2018, Spring 2020 (intensive), 2020-21.  

  • description: This is a course which overviews the government and politics of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. It introduces the political histories of these countries, and also goes through various topics like the effects of colonialism, why there is variation in levels of democracy between India and Pakistan, the role of ethnic parties, caste and Hindutva, ethnic riots between Hindus and Muslims, various insurgencies in India and Pakistan like Kashmir, Punjab and Maoists, variation in economic development, nuclear deterrence between India and Pakistan, drawing on canonical and recent books and articles by scholars working on South Asian politics.

  • Syllabus: Click here for syllabus

• POL 487 H5S: Insurgency, Terrorism and Violence in South Asia. Spring 2017; Spring 2018.

  • description: This course focuses on various theoretical explanations of civil war onset, and compares the opportunity, greed and grievance approaches. It then focuses on some recent research analyzing the role of patterns of violence, patronage and rebel cohesion, vigilante movements. The last part of the course focuses on some cases on insurgency in South Asia and tries to apply the theories of civil war to these cases. We do simulation exercises like the Rebel's Dilemma in this course. Student do weekly presentations, participate actively in discussions and write research papers.

      

University of Toronto St. George, graduate level courses.

• POL 443/2322 H: Civil War and Political Violence. Undergraduates and MA students. Spring 2014, Spring 2015. 

  • description: This course focuses on various theoretical explanations of civil war onset, conflict severity and duration. It also focuses on recent research in the civil war literature , like vigilante groups, patterns of violence, rebel cohesion, rebel governance, and other topics.

  • Syllabus:

• POL 2505 H: Qualitative Methods (for PhD students), Spring 2016, Spring 2017.

  • description: This is a mandatory methods course for PhD students at U Toronto. It goes through different types of qualitative methods like comparative case studies, comparative historical analysis, field work, ethnography, interview techniques, mixed methods, research ethics and DART. PhD students have to do field work and interviews and write reports, or write a paper using archival research or discursive methods.

  • Syllabus:

• POL 441/2411HS: Rebellion and Insurgency: Cases from South Asia, Spring 2020

  • description: The first part of the course focuses on generalizable theory for causes, and various dynamics of civil wars. The second part of the course focuses on cases from South Asia, in particular India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal. The goal of the course is to understand the general theoretical debates on causes and consequences of civil war/ insurgency, and then apply it to particular cases of insurgency and civil war in the South Asian region.

• POL 441/2411 H1S: Democracy, ethnicity and insurgency in South Asia, Spring 2021.

  • description: The general theme of this course is to understand ethnic conflict and political violence in South Asia, focusing particularly on India and Pakistan. The first part of the course will focus on Hindu Muslim riots which are a specific form of political violence, and in the second part of the course, we will look at ethnic secessionist insurgency in India and Pakistan and also leftist insurgency in India and Nepal, which are different forms of insurgency.