This interview is part of a series of interviews with academics and practitioners at an early stage of their career. The interviews discuss current research and projects, as well as advice for other early career scholars.
Dr. Astha Chadha is an Associate Professor at the College of International Relations, Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto and is also working as an adjunct lecturer at Doshisha Women’s College (Kyoto) and Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (Beppu). Her research focuses on South Asian security, Japan-India relations, gender security in the Indo-Pacific, and religion in global politics. She is the Communications Chair for ISA’s Religion and International Relations section, Regional Research Associate at the Indo-Pacific Studies Center (Australia), Women, Peace and Security Fellow at Pacific Forum (Hawaii). She is the author of Faith and Politics in South Asia (Routledge: 2024). Her article, The Ghost of Gandhi, was the winner of the 2025 E-International Relations Article Award.
Where do you see the most exciting research/debates happening in your field?
Honestly, it is a fascinating time to be involved in International Relations (IR). Whether we are talking about security studies, foreign policy, or pushing the discipline into new theoretical territory, there is so much happening. But what really excites me are the debates around post-Western epistemology and Global IR, especially how religion and IR intersect. These discussions challenge the long-standing Eurocentric, Westphalian models that have dominated the field, pushing us to rethink how we understand history, worldview, and knowledge itself. For example, the move toward post-Western IR theory is reshaping core concepts like “state,” “sovereignty,” “rationality,” and “anarchy.” Instead of seeing them as fixed, Western-derived ideas, scholars are exploring how different cultural and historical experiences could enrich or even redefine these concepts—trying to move them from a European-centric context to something more universal. I have been delving into non-Western cosmologies lately, which offer fresh lenses for understanding global order—sometimes challenging mainstream narratives that overlook diverse voices.
I also find the interplay between IR and religion deeply compelling. It pushes the field to question its secular, rationalist biases and consider ideas like spiritual power or long-term civilizational histories as legitimate components of theory. In my book Faith and Politics in South Asia, I introduced the idea of “exegesis”—which I see as interpreting religion as a form of historical discourse—showing how religious narratives influence state identity, collective memory, and international relations.
Another exciting front is how scholars are exploring concept like spectrality and hauntology. How past fears, traumas, and even non-human actors shape our present is an interesting topic to ponder on. For instance, the article “Ghost of Gandhi” uses hauntology to examine how Gandhi’s legacy continues to influence today’s politics, long after his time. This area is revealing that IR is often haunted by its own colonial and violent histories. It reminds us that “stable” times are often illusionary and that conflicts are cycles rooted in unresolved past injustices. It is an ethical call to see contemporary conflicts as echoes of historical pain, not isolated incidents.
How has the way you understand the world changed over time, and what (or who) prompted the most significant shifts in your thinking?
My journey has been a process of unlearning and challenging deeply ingrained assumptions. Early on, my understanding was shaped by mainstream IR theories — focused on rational choice, strategic balances, and states as the primary actors. But I soon realized these frameworks could not fully explain the power dynamics I saw, especially in South Asia, where religion and local histories play a huge role. I also struggled with the secular assumptions of IR. Concepts like the church-state nexus or faith-based movements did not fit neatly into the existing models. That led me to question: Who really defines a state’s interests? Where and how do those interests situate non-human security? I found myself thinking: why is there too much focus in IR on finding or defining an ordered and predictable world, when the observable international system seems quite chaotic with too many undefined variables?
I am constantly looking at theory and then finding it at odds with my observations — that has opened doors for future research. I continue to study the affective force and the role of belief over interests, of deep historical resentment fuelling conflicts, and most importantly, the secular bias and historical amnesia embedded within mainstream IR. That crisis led me to the works of several scholars including those I had the opportunity to connect with at ISA’s Religion and IR Section. I have also been very interested in post-colonial thought and the influence of certain world leaders on international politics: one of those is M.K. Gandhi. Reading Gandhi’s concept of Satyagraha (the force of truth) and Ahimsa (non-violence) forced me to confront the existence of ethical and spiritual power as a form of agency that transcends military might or economic power and operates on very different realm of self-suffering, truth-seeking, and moral conviction. This contradicts, in many ways, the basic assumptions of IR. Similarly, there is an element of misinterpretation of caste in Gandhi’s writings and has been discussed extensively by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar. So, while Gandhi pushes the security discourse towards introspection and self-reflection, Ambedkar questions its applicability and its grounding in romanticization of the anti-colonial struggle; Ambedkar posits that not always a fight for justice is a just fight, and that the oppressed can also be oppressors.
This, in fact, prompted my interest further into religion and IR, and how worldviews are constructed and shaped. This also led me to research further on how we can conceptualize ideals of “truth”, “non-violence” or “justice” as active political forces that in fact operate through very specific and sacred language and history. These then become political forces that can reformulate the international system as a moral/ethical battleground haunted by the failures of its emancipatory projects, a view I tried to explain through the hauntological approach in the article. If you think about it, IR scholarship is also not just an intellectual explanation of the world with its injustices, but also a recognition that new scholarship in IR can be a form of discursive political intervention into the inherent biases of the discipline.
In your article The Ghost of Gandhi: A Hauntological Approach to Truth and Non-Violence, what led you to apply Derrida’s concept of hauntology to Gandhi’s legacy? What unique insights does this framework offer that differ from those of traditional historical or political analyses?
The “hauntological approach” aimed to treat Gandhi not as a static figure but as an active “ghost,” a spectral force that haunts the present by exposing the ethical debt incurred by the status quo. My article sought to apply Derrida’s hauntology to address a very specific discontent I had with two important, but contradictory, treatments of the “Mahatma”, i.e., one that is hagiographical and other that is positivist de-spiritualization. Hauntology helped address that gap — it is the undefined grey zone where I think Gandhi truly operates as a “ghost”. The hauntological approach offers a unique incorporation of Gandhi by allowing the integration of his failures, the unfulfilled potential of his ideas, and the unaddressed ethical demands of his being, into the political analysis of Satyagraha (the force of truth) and Ahimsa (non-violence).
The main puzzle was that if Gandhi is a universally recognized historical figure of saintly perfection, his presence would remain confined to the past where he existed. If he was represented by his methods for Satyagraha and Ahimsa, his relevance would be confined to practically adaptable methods of non-violent protests, for instance. This would imply that Gandhi was either too perfect and idealistic, or too obsolete, for today’s politics, given that his methods were for a specific period in history, in a specific context. This is precisely where Derrida’s hauntology is valuable in arguing that the spectral is an “absent presence”. Gandhi is not historical, but an unresolved promise of justice, that disrupts the linear historical discourse and challenges the notion of an overpowering, victorious, self-satisfied present. The concept helps reflect on why Gandhi (or his ideas) keep resurfacing – be it the long-standing (mis)understanding of caste, IR’s forgetfulness over its colonial roots, Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, or in the very moral language used to critique contemporary conflicts like the Israel-Palestine crisis (as the article explores). The hauntological approach shows how and why the “ghost” of Gandhi refuses to be fully exorcised.
From the perspective of traditional analyses, the hauntological approach offers several unique and crucial insights that are otherwise missed. One is the structural integration of the shadow of failure. Traditional hagiography sanitizes Gandhi and his life (his problematic views on caste or his failure to prevent a series of violence related to the Partition), while traditional political analysis simply dismisses these as tactical errors by a key political figure. However, the “Ghost of Gandhi” necessitates that we include these shadows. The ghost is not a perfect ideal, but surely a painful reminder of the human cost of a flawed but noble struggle. By confronting and integrating these failures, the ghost forces a more pragmatic, less idealized, image. The hauntological approach enables more empathetic engagement with Gandhi’s legacy, making his struggle human and perpetually relevant.
Secondly, Ahimsa as an “end, not just a means” through the hauntological approach re-centers the ethical core. Simply put, Ahimsa is not just a strategic means to achieve political goals. The ghost demands that Ahimsa be continuous, internal, a spiritual commitment and a relentless ethical reckoning, i.e., an end in itself. The existence of the ghost challenges actors, whether states or individuals, to introspect and recognize their own complicity in perpetuating structural violence. The persistence of the ghost signifies that this work of ethical self-reform is unfinished and demands a moral, not just a strategic, intervention in global affairs.
The third avenue made available by the hauntological approach would be challenging the linearity of time, especially when viewed through the Indian philosophical/religious thought, where time is non-linear and cyclical. That helps uncover the disruption of history. Traditional historical or political analyses see Gandhi’s work as a closed chapter, or as an event that happened and is “past”. The ghost, however, exists in a non-linear realm of “to come”, insisting that the potential for truth (Satyagraha) and non-violence (Ahimsa) is an unfulfilled promise that can be reborn at any moment to confront injustice. This allows us to re-contextualize Gandhi’s principles in conflicts like the Israel-Palestine rivalry, arguing that his ideals are spectral forces that return cyclically, refusing to allow the present to “settle”. This offers a perpetually open-ended framework for justice.
What motivated you to undertake a comprehensive review of how religion is theorised within international relations? Have you noticed any persistent misconceptions or oversights in mainstream IR scholarship?
My motivation came from how I viewed IR’s intellectual and empirical analyses from my regional focus on South Asia. So long as the mainstream IR focuses on secular modernity, it would be difficult to incorporate or honestly engage with religion as a key, rather than peripheral, political force in global affairs. For instance, the importance of faith-based movements (whether violent or non-violent) as stirring regional and international political change challenged the secular presumption that modernity would inevitably lead to the privatization and marginalization of religion. My book, Faith and Politics in South Asia, demonstrated that the state identities and foreign policy choices of nations like India, Bangladesh and Pakistan are deeply rooted in specific political theologies that predate, and often supersede, secular-rationalist logic.
In a way, it highlights some persistent misconceptions like universalization of the church-state separation as a template for modern states. That is why there continues to be a lack of acknowledgement of perpetual existence and thriving of religion in political spaces (and in some cases its overpowering dictation of politics) through use of terms like “resurgence” or the “return” of religion. That might be the case from certain perspectives, but it cannot be universalized as a common experience of all regions of the world. For large parts of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, the political and the spiritual have always been deeply intertwined, and in-fact have sustained each other. IR’s secular cage misdiagnoses the foundational differences in state ontology as anomaly or instability or deviation from the norm.
Another example is how IR primarily treats religion as an “instrumental variable”, a tool to be manipulated by rational political elites to achieve secular goals. While religion can be used as a tool, it is questionable to label it as such and ignore it as a source of identity, a form of legitimacy or as a framework for violence and peace that runs the moral economy of responsibility. This is one of the reasons why Satyagraha, which cannot be reduced to a mere political technique because its power derives from an internal, spiritual commitment to Ahimsa, continues to be misunderstood. Similarly, by hyper-focusing on the extremities of religion as a violent force, IR ignores the possibility of the “Ghost of Gandhi “as the ethical and non-violent challenge that faith can pose to the status quo.
These have implications for research and policy analysis too. I can give you two examples. How can we operationalize Satyagraha or Nirvana (liberation) into secular IR variables? Fitting religious concepts into a secular framework sometimes renders them unrecognizable or politically neutered. This can affect the research design and even lead to misinterpretations. Often, religious motivations can be dismissed as irrational. Similarly, the idea of agency is clear in IR but complex when viewed through a religious lens. Where does the political power lie? Who is a sovereign? Different religions give different answers: for some, it is the text; for others, the leader or prophet(s), sometimes the community; and it can even be the divine itself. This challenges the state as a unitary actor. Moreover, religion is unbounded by state boundary or loyalty. It also forces IR to deal with the inner logic of faith and conviction, rather than just the external logic of rational objective and interests. These ambiguities cause analysis paralysis for research seeking causal explanation, while for policy, this creates difficulty in pointing to the levers of influence. For instance, during conflict resolution, should a secular government rationally negotiate with political elites or also engage religious figures with significant moral authority in the community? That remains a challenge for policy.
In your review, what do you identify as the most significant theoretical challenges when incorporating religion into IR frameworks? How do these affect both research and policy analysis?
As I explained, one of the biggest challenges is that religion does not fit neatly into existing IR frameworks, which are largely based on rationality and state-centric assumptions. Religion involves inner logic, sacred language, and moral claims that may transcend or challenge state sovereignty and secular reasoning. It is difficult to measure, predict, or incorporate these factors into conventional analyses.
This ambiguity complicates research: how do you quantify faith’s influence? And it complicates policy: should governments engage religious leaders directly? Recognizing religion’s moral and identity-building roles demands a more nuanced approach, which is not always straightforward or comfortable for policymakers grounded in secular principles.
How crucial is the role of India-Japan collaborations in countering China’s Himalayan ambitions? What potential do such coalitions have in balancing China’s influence and ensuring regional security?
The role of India-Japan collaboration is a very important multi-dimensional strategic, economic, and normative pillar in the Indo-Pacific architecture. While it assists India’s position as an emerging power and a credible voice of the Global South, it also addresses Himalayan security and Himalayan connectivity to the wider region.
China’s Himalayan presence is three-pronged: confrontational, such as along the Indo-Chinese border (which remains largely undecided and highly contested); economically significant when viewed through the Belt and Road Initiative projects China has undertaken (BRI projects in Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh); and demonstrative of China’s hydrological dominance in building dams in and beyond Tibetan rivers. Additionally, China exercises significant political influence among South Asian states (Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka etc.). The India-Japan strategic partnership offers, to the region, an alternative model of development cooperation.
As a geo-economic counterweight, Japan and India have previously collaborated on infrastructure and strategic connectivity projects in India’s Northeast bordering the Himalayan region. Japan’s commitment to quality infrastructure also serves as a normative counter to the BRI model of opacity and financial infeasibility. Indo-Japanese collaboration through frameworks like the Quad (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue), maritime domain awareness, joint exercises, and strategic communication, are aimed at deterring any power concentration by one actor in the region, and are marked by freedom of navigation, shared prosperity, and inclusivity.
Your ISDP brief, Tibet’s Climate Crisis: The Japanese Perspective, notes Japan’s longstanding recognition of Tibet as part of China, while also highlighting concerns over human rights and environmental degradation. Given the intensifying geopolitical competition in the Indo-Pacific, how do you foresee Japan’s policy toward Tibet evolving in the coming years?
Japan’s Tibet policy is a complex balancing act between economic interdependence with China and normative commitment to liberal democratic values and human rights. Given the intensifying US-China geopolitical competition, Beijing’s assertive actions in the South China Sea or close to the Senkaku Islands, and the strengthening of the US-Japan security alliance, I foresee Japan’s policy toward Tibet evolving slowly but calculatedly from strategic silence on political issues to careful normative conditioning through the non-confrontational lens of environmental security and climate crises.
In fact, the environmental security nexus could become a significant vector of change, since the Tibetan Plateau is the “Third Pole” serving as the source of Asia’s great rivers. Extensive dam construction and the accelerating effects of climate crisis pose an existential security threat to the region’s water security. For most downstream nations, Tibet’s environmental crisis is seen not as a domestic issue but as a transnational security challenge. This framing allows nations like Japan to engage China on climate issues without confrontation and raise these concerns at multilateral forums about shared environmental risks without evoking sensitive political vocabulary.
Japan is also India’s strategic partner, and this bilateral alignment is key to Indo-Pacific security in many ways. Such environmentally sensitive framing of Tibet’s climate challenge addresses India’s water security, while also speaking for the landlocked Himalayan nations of Nepal and Bhutan. Coordinating joint policy and research efforts with India could subtly strengthen the Indo-Japanese strategic partnership on a non-military shared interest that also addresses the movement for Tibetan cultural existence.
On a wider scale, the intensification of Indo-Pacific contests has fundamentally shifted the political calculus. As decoupling from China is impractical for nations like Japan, de-risking remains the key. Japan will continue to subtly leverage its growing strategic relationship with India and the Quad framework to craft a sustained and continuous Tibet policy of strategically signaling for mobilization of normative pressure on China, to manage Beijing’s behavior and bring it to the discussion table on climate issues, all without abandoning its foundational political commitments to the bilateral Japan-China relations. But overall, there is increasing concern over the need to raise this issue by responsible interactional actors at multilateral forums, ad to engage with China on Tibetan security because it impacts not only Himalayan nations but the wider Indo-Pacific. In fact, that was one of the key points of discussion at the Second Stockholm Forum on Himalaya I was invited to participate in. There was consensus among speakers, which was also mentioned in the Forum’s proceedings, that Tibet needs to be situated in serious deliberations on climate change on the UNFCCC agenda and COP 30.
Your article underscores the importance of direct inter-Korean dialogue free from external interference. Considering the current geopolitical complexities — particularly surrounding the nuclear issue — what concrete confidence-building measures or policy initiatives could facilitate such dialogue?
The principle of direct inter-Korean dialogue, unfettered by external interference, is in a way deeply aligned with the spirit of autonomy and internal ethical reckoning (introspection) discussed by the “Ghost of Gandhi”. The idea is for the two actors to confront their shared, painful history directly, and engage in a process of truth and reconciliation. But the complexity of the nuclear issue means that true “freedom” or possible evasion from external interference is difficult to achieve. Therefore, the most effective confidence-building measures (CBMs) must be those that de-securitize non-political issues while also creating channels for continued engagement that make external intervention less necessary. These measures must focus on alleviating human suffering and must seek to restore trust and a shared sense of security, which are harder for external powers to intervene in or criticize. For instance, the establishment of a permanent, non-political, demilitarized office to mainly facilitate reunification of families or connecting abductees with their relatives through video meetings, and eventually physical reunions, can de-securitize human suffering and make the dialogue ethically necessary rather than politically convenient. This is, in a way, a joint dedication to the Ahimsa principle, and could be a step towards building and sustaining the trust. These can also be the basis for further joint action on common challenges like the climate change or health crises (like pandemic, pollution etc.), or joint research for disaster risk reduction.
The CBM on the military side can be more challenging, given the nuclear anxiety. Moreover, the recent political developments regarding South Korean acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines could re-spark the classical security dilemma. Any CBM in such a climate of uncertainty would need to be supported bilaterally. The traditional dedicated military and political hotlines would need to be regularized, and kept functional to decrease the likelihood of misinterpretation, disinformation and mistrust during a crisis. The aim of these CBMs is to ensure and show that the two Koreas can manage their shared challenges bilaterally. This could revise the global perception from perpetually brewing conflict managed by external powers to a bilateral negotiation based on Korean autonomy.
What is the most important advice you could give to young scholars of International Relations?
The most important advice I can offer to young scholars of IR drawn to the intersection of theory, history, and ethics, is to avoid being confined to a single theoretical “camp”. Master the foundations but do not shy away from crossing disciplinary boundaries.
The second would be to embrace the haunting. Examine the “absent presence”, seek the marginalized histories, explore silenced voices and identify unresolved injustices that continue to shape our present.
The third would be, most importantly, to resist the pressure of rapid response. It is worth your time to read and research deeply rather than superficially. It might sound too time-consuming in today’s day and age, but reading entire books allows you to engage in a mental churning, much like the great churning of the cosmic ocean.
Developing valuable research capabilities requires labor, patience, perseverance, and constant seeking. It needs to be nurtured with (Satyagraha) self-reflection too.
