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Dr M. Mohsin Alam Bhat, BA LLB (Nalsar, India), LLM and JSD (Yale)

M. Mohsin

Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Law

Email: m.bhat@qmul.ac.uk
Room Number: Mile End

Profile

Mohsin Alam Bhat is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Law at Queen Mary University of London, specializing in constitutional law and human rights. His expertise spans minority rights, religious regulation, and the law of democracy, examined through comparative, socio-legal, and cross-disciplinary lenses.

Mohsin's current research investigates the challenges posed to democracy, minority rights, and the rule of law by authoritarianism in democratic or quasi-democratic settings. He also explores democratic resilience, particularly the role of electoral commissions in India and similar jurisdictions in safeguarding electoral integrity.

His scholarship engages with critical issues at the intersection of law, religion, and politics. Mohsin's work on secularism examines how post-colonial challenges related to national identity, state formation, and constitutional reform influence religious regulation. He is currently working on a book manuscript that traces the legal mobilization for affirmative action among India’s marginalized Muslim communities. Based on extensive fieldwork, the book offers a compelling view of how these communities adopt and engage with the principles of equal and secular citizenship, showcasing the constitutional practices of ordinary citizens in Global South contexts.

Mohsin's academic research has been published in leading legal and cross-disciplinary journals, including the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Social and Legal Studies, Asian Journal of Comparative Law, and the Journal of Interpersonal Violence. His public commentary has appeared in prominent outlets such as The Baffler, The Indian Express, and Hindustan Times. He has also shared his expertise on platforms like BBC London Radio, NDTV, Al Jazeera, and in reports by Human Rights Watch.

A committed advocate for marginalized communities, Mohsin’s work on minority rights—particularly on hate crime, citizenship law, and housing discrimination—is grounded in extensive field research and legal clinical work in India. He is an active participant in non-academic spaces, collaborating with civil society and non-academic colleagues. Mohsin is a co-founder of Parichay, a legal aid initiative that supports individuals facing citizenship deprivation in India. He also serves on the editorial board of Article-14, a digital platform dedicated to civil liberties issues in India.

Before joining Queen Mary, Mohsin taught at Jindal Global Law School in India, where he was the Executive Director of the Centre for Public Interest Law and led legal clinics on hate crime and statelessness. He is also a visiting faculty member in the LLM in International & European Law program at Faculté de Droit, Université Catholique de Lille. Mohsin holds a law degree from NALSAR University of Law (India) and earned his LLM and JSD from Yale Law School.

Undergraduate Teaching

Postgraduate Teaching

SOLM069 International Human Rights Law: Theory, History, Politics

Research

Publications

Special Issue Editor

  • Bhat, Mohsin Alam & Rudabeh Shahid (eds.), “Mutual Attrition of Citizenship, Democracy, and the Rule of Law in South and Southeast Asia,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (2024).
  • Bhat, Mohsin Alam (ed.), “Hate Crimes in India,” Jindal Global Law Review, 11 (2020).

Journal Articles

Book Sections and Chapters

Other Publications

Supervision

Mohsin welcomes proposals for postgraduate supervision in his research areas, particularly law and religion, minority rights, and democracy and authoritarianism.

Public Engagement

Report ‘Unmaking Citizens’ (July 2025) of Denationalisation Trials in India 

Mohsin Alam Bhat released his report on denationalisation politics in India — Unmaking Citizens: The Architecture of Rights Violations and Exclusion in India’s Citizenship Trials — in New Delhi on 26 July 2025. The report critiques the quasi-legal and administrative mechanisms known as “Foreigners Tribunals” in the eastern state of Assam, where more than 165,000 persons have already been declared “foreigners” and over one million cases are still expected to be heard. Based on extensive field interviews with practising lawyers and a survey of more than 1,200 High Court cases, the report argues that these mechanisms violate both international human rights law and India’s constitutional norms, calling for their complete overhaul.

Coverage in major print and video outlets: 

Mohsin’s interviews on the report’s findings:

Mohsin’s writings on the report :

Recently Quoted in the News

Recent Interviews

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