Dr Sambaiah Gundimeda, who hails from a sleepy village called Gundimeda in the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh, had his BA in Special English, Political Science and History from Andhra Loyola College, Vijayawada. After securing MA and MPhil in Political Science from the University of Hyderabad, he secured the Ford Foundation International Fellowship to pursue PhD at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK. While finalising his PhD, he joined the Council for Social Development, Hyderabad, as an Assistant Professor. Following this, he became a Charles Wallace India Trust Visiting Fellow at IASH, University of Edinburgh, 2013; a Visiting Associate Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), New Delhi in 2014 and a Fellow at Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi between 2015 and 2017. Before joining Krea University, he was with Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, for ten years.

Research

Dr Gundimeda, a political scientist by training, is an enthusiastic student of Indian politics. He is particularly attracted to the interplay between caste, religion and power in the Indian political arena. He is also fascinated by the Constitution of India, especially its framework for inclusivity and diversity. Recently he began to read the Constituent Assembly Debates and hoping to work on a book that reflects the relevance of those debates.

Dr Gundimeda is also captivated by the idea of Democracy, specifically the power it bestows upon the common person. This interest led him to examine Dalit mobilisations for political power, both in North and South India. This research work has been published by Routledge under the title, Dalit Politics in Contemporary India. (hyperlink it to: https://www.routledge.com/Dalit-Politics-in-Contemporary-India/Gundimeda/p/book/9780815393023) Praised by the publishers as a ground-breaking intervention on Dalit politics in India, this work by drawing on archival material, fieldwork and case studies, challenges received ideas on Dalits’ understanding of caste, justice and democracy. By using a comparative framework to understand Dalit mobilisations for political power, social equality and justice, the book traces the emergence of Dalit consciousness and its different strands in North and South India – from colonial to contemporary times.

Dr Gundimeda is enchanted by the way the animal cow in recent years has emerged as a vehicle of mobilisation in the Indian political scenario. He has been keenly following the debate around the issue of cow-slaughter, both in the political arena and judiciary.  Through his research on cow-slaughter, what seemed to have been an unbridgeable chasm between the Hindus and non-Hindus, Dr Gundimeda is trying to find a way wherein the Hindus’ sentiments towards the animal cow are respected and the rights of the non-Hindu public is also realised.

Publications

Book

• Dalit Politics in Contemporary India [ New Delhi: Routledge, 2016]https://www.routledge.com/Dalit-Politics-in-Contemporary-India/Gundimeda/p/book/9780815393023

Research Papers

• Sambaiah Gundimeda (2023) “Debating cow-slaughter: the making of Article 48 in the Constituent Assembly of India”, India Review, Vol. 22 (1): 1-27.https://doi.org/10.1080/14736489.2022.2142757
• Sambaiah Gundimeda and V.S. Ashwin. 2018. “Cow Protection in India: From Secularising to Legitimating Debates”, South Asia Research, 38(2): 156-176.https://doi.org/10.1177/0262728018768961
• Sambaiah Gundimeda. 2017. “Caste, Media and Political Power in Andhra Pradesh: The case of Eenadu”, by History and Sociology of South Asia (HSSA), 11(2): 192-203.https://doi.org/10.1177/2230807517718308
• Sambaiah Gundimeda. 2016. “Dalit Activism in Telugu Country, 1917-30” in South Asia Research, 36(3): 322-42.https://doi.org/10.1177/0262728016663270
• Sambaiah Gundimeda. 2014. “Bahujan Samaj Party: Between Social Justice and Political Practice” in Social Change, 44 (1):21-38.https://doi.org/10.1177/0049085713514819
• Sambaiah Gundimeda. 2009. “Democratisation of the Public Sphere: The Beef Stall Case in Hyderabad’s Sukoon Festival”, South Asia Research, 29(2): 1-27.https://doi.org/10.1177/026272800902900202
• Sambaiah Gundimeda. 2009. “Dalits, Praja Rajyam Party and Caste Politics in Andhra Pradesh”, Economic and Political Weekly, 44 (21): 50-58.https://www.epw.in/journal/2009/21/special-articles/dalits-praja-rajyam-party-and-caste-politics-andhra-pradesh.html

Book Chapters

• “Legitimating a Hindu Religious Practice: The Making of Article 48 in the Constituent Assembly of India: Critical Consideration”, in Selvaraj Arulnathan S.J., S. Lourdenathan and Denzil Fernandes S.J. (eds.) Minorities and Nation Building. Bengaluru: Indian Social Institute, 2019, pp: 135-158.
• “Social Justice and the Question of Categorization of Dalit Reservations: The Dandora Debate in Andhra Pradesh”, in Ramnarayan S Rawat and K. Satyanarayan (eds.), Dalit Studies: New Perspectives on South Asian Society and History. Durham: Duke University Press, 2016. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/4/oa_monograph/chapter/2280489
• “Claiming Right to Represent: Dalits and Public Sphere” in K. Purushotham, Gogu Shyamala and Gita Ramaswamy (eds.), Oxford India Anthology of Telugu Dalit Writing. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2016.
• “Democratization of the Public Sphere: The Beef Stall case in Hyderabad’s Sukoon Festival” in Tharu, Susie and K Satyanarayana (eds)., From Those Stubs, Steel Nibs Are Sprouting: New Dalit Writing From South India, Dossier II. New Delhi: Harper Collins, 2013.
• “Madiga Dandora: A Social Movement for Rationalization of Dalit Reservations”, in Yagati, Chinnarao (ed.) Dividing Dalits: Writings on the sub-categorization of Scheduled Castes. New Delhi: Rawat Publications, pp: 106-156, (2010). 

Editor

• Gundimeda, Sambaiah, V. B. Tharakeshwar and Uma Bhrugubanda (eds.), What’s the Menu – Food Politics and Hegemony. Anveshi Broadsheet on contemporary politics, Vol. 1 (4), September 2012.
• Essays in Learned Journals: ‘Will the Victims of Caste Violence in Andhra’s Peda Gottipadu Village Get Justice?’, The Wire, 29 January, 2018.
• ‘Congress’ Game-plan in Andhra Pradesh’, Mainstream Weekly, Vol. LI, No: 44, 19 Oct. 2013.
• ’Caste Calculations of the Congress in Andhra Pradesh’, Economic and Political Weekly, 19 October 2013, Vol. XLVIII, No. 42, pp. 18-20.
• ‘Democratization of the Public Sphere’, in Gundimeda, Sambaiah at el (eds.), What’s the Menu – Food Politics and Hegemony. Anveshi Broadsheet on contemporary politics, Vol. 1 No. 4, September 2012.
• ‘Legal Clinics and Adivasi Rights: Report of a National Workshop’, Economic and Political Weekly, March 10, 2012, Vol. XLVII, No. 10, pp: 21-24, (with KalpanaKannabiranet.al).
• ‘Caught Between Culture and Weakness: The Ipswich Victims’, Counter Currents, 19 Dec. 2006: http://www.countercurrents.org/gen-gundimeda191206.htm
• ”Riots in France – Lessons for India”, Counter Currents, 18 November, 2005: http://www.countercurrents.org/fra-gundimeda181105.htm
• “Emergence of caste consciousness among the Madigas of Andhra Pradesh” Dalit International Newsletter, (USA) 6(1): February 2001: 5- 9. 

Working Papers

• ’In Search of Equality: Caste and Dalit Strategies in Contemporary India’, in Hyderabad Social Development Papers: Council for Social Development, Hyderabad, 1(1-4): 89-111, (2012).
• ’For Social Equality and Political Representation: Dalit Activism in Telugu Country, 1917-30’, in Hyderabad Social Development Papers: Council for Social Development, Hyderabad, 2(1-4): 21-40, (2013).

Teaching Modules

For Dr Gundimeda, teaching is a matter of joy as well as a sense of accomplishment.  He enjoys it as it helps him not only to clarify his own thinking and develop a critical perspective, but essentially helps him to clarify and guide the thinking of the young minds in the right direction, particularly in realising the goals and values of democracy and the Constitution of India.

Currently, Dr Gundimeda teaches a core course: Understanding Indian Politics, and offers three electives:

• Diversity, Religion and Law in India
• Dalits, State and Development
• Debating India: Key Deliberations in the Constituent Assembly

Dr Gundimeda also co-teaches an elective course with Prof Panchali Ray:

• Anthropology of Violence: State, Power and Politics
• Teaching Methods of Dr Gundimeda:

In an academic career that spans more than 15 years, Dr Gundimeda has been deploying various strategies in his teaching. For instance, he generally develops Learning Objectives/Outcomes for each topic, and sometimes for each lecture. He believes that presenting those Learning Objectives at the beginning of a Course would help the students understand the flow of lectures and actively participate in the classroom transactions. In addition to this, at the beginning of each lecture, Dr Gundimeda provides a Roadmap of the proposed lecture’s direction. He believes that sharing an outline – sometimes within the lecture or written handout – would facilitate the presentation of the structure of lecture more transparently and it also supports students learning by helping them conceptualise the connections and causal reasons behind lecture content. He also shares relevant slides of any given lecture with the students at least a day before the actual lecture. This would help the students to have prior information about the lecture broad outline and the main concepts involved, and those slides also facilitate students’ easy navigation in the next day’s lecture.

One of the methods of teaching that Dr Gundimeda deploys in the classroom is that of traditional lecture format. But this shall not be simply a monologue or a one-way communication between the students and the teacher, rather it is a two-way communication between the students and the teacher. Following the Socratic method, he invites students to actively participate in learning by asking questions and seeking answers systematically along with the students.

Dr Gundimeda also deploys the strategies of individual presentation and Team-based Learning in his teaching. While the individual presentations make the students achieve greater clarity on any given topic as they need to explain to the audience. Team-based Learning, which includes group discussion and group presentations, enables the students to clarify their thinking and perspectives. He believes Team-based Learning is a powerful strategy and a method of higher order of thinking as it would facilitate collaborative learning. Moreover, this method improves the public reasoning of the students and aids them to uncover, address gaps and misconceptions in knowledge and develop their own conceptual frameworks. Dr Gundimeda also deploys the method of Case-based Learning in his lectures. He believes that this method helps the students to understand the concepts involved with ease.

From time to time, Dr Gundimeda also deploys the Street-Theatre Method in the classroom transactions. In this method, to initiate a discussion on any contemporary issue, he invites a group of students at the beginning of lecture and gives them a topic to enact in street-theatre mode for about 10 to 15 minutes in front of their classmates. After that enactment, the students shall be invited to examine and explore the ideas, issues and problems reflected in the enactment and ways to assuage problems through the established institutional mechanisms and Constitutional framework.