Desi girl in University of Cambridge

“It’s become more real by the heart-warming congratulatory messages that I have been receiving from all around the country. My first reaction was one of disbelief: when I first arrived at the Faculty of Law as a student, it was inconceivable for me to think of someone like myself, a young, non-European woman teaching there one day. It felt surreal when I got the call offering me the position. I called my grandmother first, as she is always the first person I share any good news with. Her reaction makes it all worthwhile,” she shares.

Childhood was tough for Antara, but she decided to steer the course of her life.

“My father died when I was very young and I was raised by my grandmother and mother. My grandmother grew up in British India, so I think it is particularly significant for her to see her granddaughter invited to teach at Britain’s highly regarded academic institution. My childhood was difficult in a number of ways, and my family was anxious that I should land on my feet. There was pressure to make more conventional choices but I have always been a headstrong person, so even while appearing to tow the line, I’ve never entirely conformed. My mother went through a lot to raise me and it was important to me growing up to make my family proud, I hope I have done that a little, but there is much left to be done,” she says.

She reveals that this is the first time in the 800-year-old history of the Law Faculty at the University that this position has been created. “It was created so that development could be taught at the Faculty for the very first time, thereby not only giving the Global South a voice in the conversation but mainstreaming its intellectual position,” she says.

Antara came to the UK as a young law student on the Nehru Scholarship. She holds degrees in law and economics and is an alumnus of St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University, Trinity College, University of Cambridge and Columbia University. In 2010 she received her PhD. Antara has also been the recipient of numerous academic grants and awards, including Oxford-Princeton Global Leaders Fellowship, Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Trust Scholarship and the Cambridge Law Faculty’s Yorke Prize.

Her work has been an overlap of development, law and economics with focus on gender. Talking about the changes she wants to initiate, Antara says, “My work lies at the intersection of development, law and economics but not all of it is focused exclusively on gender. Law, economics and development will continue to be my main areas of focus but I am turning increasingly to legal and political philosophy.”

She was in Mumbai before her tenure began and met with policy makers, top bankers and industry bigwigs to discuss her first project in India, Gujarat Development Model. “I’ve already done theoretical work on credit markets in India, as well as some work on gender, but this will be my first in-depth fieldwork-based project in India. I can’t divulge too many details yet because it is all still in the works. I am fundamentally interested in the trade-offs involved in the development process and I am looking forward to examining closely how the model strikes a balance between various competing goals in the development process.”

Law has always been a subject close to her heart. Antara says, “Issues of justice and inequality have always spoken to me at a deep level. I started out as an economist, rather than a lawyer and my work draws on both disciplines. My interest has never been in law for its own sake, but in the structures that shape society.”

Besides research, arts, music and literature interest her. Antara says, “My infatuation with the world of ideas is challenged only by my love for the arts in all its many forms. Film and theatre, in particular, are abiding interests. Literature is another very important part of my life, so is travel. I also consider conversation to be an art form.”

She adds, “Music is very cathartic for me. My musical tastes, which have been influenced heavily by my uncle, who I grew up being very close to are quite eclectic. I like the music of the 60s and 70s and more contemporary music that is reminiscent of that, like Rodriguez. I listen to Indian classical and jazz. Also, food is one of the greatest joys in life as far as I’m concerned and culinary experimentation is my favourite adventure sport. Film, food and music are my ways of engaging with the world. I don’t like shopping, but aesthetics are important to me and I like the idea of turning the functional necessities of life, like eating and dressing, into artistic pursuits.”

Antara admits to having two sides to her personality, between which she hasn’t learnt to strike a happy medium yet. “I am mostly quite a serious, committed and focused person. I find that I need to recede into myself and reach deep within to try and produce intellectual output of any merit. I can be rather difficult to be around in those moments. But there is also a lighter side to my personality and it is liberating to step outside of my usual self. In some moments, the line between work and enjoyment, business and pleasure blurs and I am ‘in flow’. The goal is to spend as many moments as possible in that state,” she says.