Governing the Borderlands

Durga P. Chhetri is Professor and Chairperson at the Department of Political Science, Sikkim University, India. He also serves as Director of the University. His research foci include governance, decentralisation and federalism, gender studies, social justice, social theory, and social exclusion/inclusion. He is the author or co-author of many scholarly articles and book chapters as well as five books – Making Democratic Decentralization Work in South Asia (co-edited: 2025), Gender, Power and Democracy in South Asia (2019), Divided Spaces: Discourse on Social Exclusion and Women in India (2014), Decentralised Governance and Development in India (2012), and Politics, Society and Development: Insights from Sikkim (2012). His most recent article was published in the Economic and Political Weekly in November 2025. He previously served as a member of the editorial board of the Indian Journal of Political Science, one of India’s leading journals publishing highquality, cutting-edge research in all areas of political science. He is the recipient of the India’s National Young Political Scientist Award in 2017.