Abstract
As intimated in the last issue, just as that issue was getting finalized at the publisher’s end, we lost one of our foremost well-wishers and supporter, Dhirubhai Sheth. He was associated with SIP in the formal capacity of member of the advisory board, but more than that, as an institution in himself, Dhirubhai was an inspiration to us in more senses than one: he was closely involved in the initial planning of the journal in 2012; he was chairperson of the steering committee of Lokniti programme of CSDS—it was this committee which had enthusiastically endorsed Lokniti’s then ambitious-looking plan to launch this journal; Dhirubhai was also instrumental in the formation of the Lokniti programme itself in late 1990s at the CSDS. In this issue, we place before the readers a very perceptive tribute to the many facets of Professor Sheth’s intellectual standing and contribution written by our editorial colleague, Hilal Ahmed. We are also thankful to Sasheej Hegde who took it upon himself to engage with Dhirubhai’s seminal writings on the question of caste and expand those insights.
As India enters into the 75th year of its independence, Studies in Indian Politics looks forward to presenting the readers with deeply engaged articles looking critically at the journey of Indian politics over past seven decades and more. In this effort, we shall initially bring to you a set of five papers guest edited by Milan Vaishnav and Madhav Khosla on the theme of Citizenship and Identity. These will be part of the June 2022 issue of SIP. We hope to follow up on this and bring more such focused scholarly writings to celebrate this occasion and hope that the readers will welcome and support these efforts which will be spread over next two years.