Shruti was born, educated and made in India. She graduated from Panjab University Chandigarh with top honours followed by a Master’s in Modern History at JNU, Delhi and received her doctorate from SOAS, London University. Her professional life has been international and prior to Cambridge, she held a research position at the University of Oxford and was Assistant Professor, in conjunction with a University Chair for Career Development, at Tufts University, Mass., USA.

She works on Modern and Contemporary India (c.1770 to the present) and Global Political Thought. Predating recent calls to ‘decolonise’ the curriculum by more than a decade, her academic life has been defined by centring the importance of India for the remaking of global political languages.

Her latest book focuses on twentieth century political thought and theory and the Indian rewriting of modern political languages notably sovereignty, democracy, violence and republicanism. Highlighted as a ‘featured book’ of the year by its publisher Violent Fraternity: Indian Political Thought in the Global Age (Princeton University Press, 2021 and Penguin Random House India, 2021) has received praise as a ‘ground-breaking’ book that is tipped to ‘globalise’ the field of political thought.

New research work focuses on Indian democracy and its constitution, conservatism and global anti-imperialism.  Shruti also has a long standing interest in the history of the modern subject, psychoanalysis and psychiatry in colonial India and the present day. She also researches and writes on the history of modern science and race, gender and political violence.

As Co-Director of the Global Humanities Initiative at the School of Arts and Humanities, Shruti works with seven universities across the global south in partnership with Cambridge for the creation of new curriculum and new institutional capabilities.

Shruti considers her political commentary and opinion as an extension of her work on India and global politics and she does so including for the the Financial Times, Prospect Magazine, BBC (radio and television), Al Jazeera, Monocle Radio, Times Radio, and Bloomberg TV and across Indian newspapers, magazines and television and writes a fortnightly column for the The Print India.

Finally and beyond the university, Shruti co-convened (2014-18) a closed-door seminar at the House of Lords, UK Parliament that put Indian leaders and key voices in dialogue with their British counterparts. She also occasionally advises and consults with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Indian institutions including most recently, the National Commission for Women the highest policy body for women in India.

Shruti other pursuits includes the training to be a psychoanalyst.