Insiyah Vahanvaty
Journalist ▪ Columnist ▪ Author ▪ Scholar
Insiyah Vahanvaty is an independent Indian journalist, commentator, and scholar with an interest in the subjects of minority rights, media studies, hate politics, gender and caste-based violence as well as the critical examination of institutionalised human rights violations, particularly in religious and racial contexts.Her columns have appeared in Indian Express, Al Jazeera, India Today, Asian Age, Deccan Chronicle, Asia Democracy Network, and The Quint amongst others. Her work has also been quoted by Reuters.She is the author of The Fearless Judge, a biography of her grandfather and the 26th Chief Justice of India, Justice Aziz Mushabber Ahmadi.Her work on the themes of right-wing politics, as well as the larger geopolitical implications of domestic political ideologies and policies have been published by think tanks and geopolitical analyses and advisory firms including Stimson Centre and Oxford Analytica.Insiyah holds a Master's Degree from King's College London in Global Affairs, where her research focused on the intersection of Indian ethnonationalism, media dynamics and the erosion of press freedoms. Her work on Ethnonationalist Drivers of the Indian Media Truth Telling Crisis has been published by Routledge Studies in Media, Communication and Politics.She also serves as a Trustee of The Ahmadi Foundation.
WORDS
HINDUSTAN TIMES
- The chilling effect of judges getting threats | Hindustan Times
- ‘Too important to discard, too imperfect to ignore’: The collegium system is flawed but necessary | Hindustan Times
- Justice depends on human wisdom, not AI | Hindustan Times
- Is apex court’s confidence in SIR exercise misplaced? | Hindustan Times
- What AI can do for the judiciary, what it can’t | Hindustan Times
- Anchor judicial recusal in institutional design | Hindustan Times
- The stakes are high in the Sabarimala matter | Hindustan Times
- A critique of the judiciary and a disproportionate response | Hindustan Times
- Nuanced reading of the right to die with dignity | Hindustan Times
- War in West Asia and failure of global order | Hindustan Times
- Indian constitutionalism’s stress test in the digital age | Hindustan Times
- Religious rights, the courts, and the State | Hindustan Times
- Supreme Court of India: An institution that is both a monument and a mirror | Hindustan Times
- Judicial course corrections & the need for judicial finality | Hindustan Times
- Indian jails: Prisoners of the caste system | Hindustan Times
- From sedition to UAPA: Policing dissent in India | Hindustan Times
- Development and clean air are not binary choices | Hindustan Times
- Revised waqf law raises constitutional red flags | Hindustan Times
- Basic structure touchstone for anti-conversion laws | Hindustan Times
- Refugees in India: Rohingya case points to legal vacuum | Hindustan Times
- A resilient judiciary will help realise Viksit Bharat | Hindustan Times
- Address inconsistencies in India’s green jurisprudence | Hindustan Times
- How Puttaswamy exorcised the ghost of ADM Jabalpur | Hindustan Times
- The Lal Babu touchstone for the Bihar SIR exercise | Hindustan Times
- Unfinished business of gender justice in India | Hindustan Times
- Courts and the making of transgender rights | Hindustan Times
- Bommai judgment draws the line for democracy | Hindustan Times
- How basic structure doctrine protects constitutional rights | Hindustan Times
- Strong institution or hand? Lessons from Seshan case | Hindustan Times
- Indian constitutionalism’s stress test in the digital age | Hindustan Times
OTHERS
- We can no longer pretend we did not know about Israel’s crimes against Palestinian children | Indian Express
- From Tiananmen to Gaza, and the Limits of a Rules-Based Order | Mero Tribune
- India’s Strategic Silence Is Testing Its Moral Voice | Mero Tribune
- WhatsApp and DPDP Act in Supreme Court raise a question: Do citizens control their data, or does their data control them? | Indian Express
- Zohran Mamdani – The Son India Will Not Claim | Mero Tribune
- Dissent in the Context of the Collegium System is not Destabilising, It’s Constitutional | The Wire
- India’s Waqf Amendment Act: Who needs bulldozers when you have bureaucrats? | Opinions | Al Jazeera
- Light in darkness: At last, there is hope for Indian secularism | Indian Express
- The Supreme Court and India’s Secular Soul | Mero Tribune
- For the Indian Muslim, Ayodhya is everywhere | Al Jazeera
- The Long List of Checks a CJI Put in Place When His Children Began Practising Law | The Wire
- Justice Ahmadi, my grandfather | Indian Express
- Indian Irredentism and the Ukraine Crisis | South Asian Voices
- Hindi, Hindu, Hindutva – Ethnonationalism in India | The Probe
- The limits of Sino-Russian ‘no-limits’ alliance | Asia Democracy Chronicles
- A not quite fine balance: The war in Ukraine has India walking a tightrope in dealing with Russia and Western powers. | Asia Democracy Chronicles
- The power of the people: In India, amid loss of life, human rights violations, and an illiberal democracy... | Asia Democracy Chronicles
- The politics of polarization: India’s extremist Hindu nationalist movement has plunged the nation into a state of hate. | Asia Democracy Chronicles
- Modi and the Indian diaspora: From 'Howdy, Modi!' to 'How could you do this, Modi?' | Asia Democracy Chronicles | Asia Democracy Chronicles
- While our leader counts his votes, we count our dead | Asia Democracy Chronicles
- Farmers’ Agitation: Are India’s Protestors the ‘New Opposition’? | The Quint
- The "Love Jihad" Conspiracy Theory with Insiyah Vahanvaty | Youtube
- Losing our religion, reimagining identity | Asian Age
- UP anti-conversion law pushes women back under parental and community control | Indian Express
- COVID-19 and the curse of caste | Asia Democracy Chronicles
- Not ‘just words’: How to counter hate speech | Asian Age
- Why India is shrouded in a culture of impunity | Asia Democracy Chronicles
BOOK
"A startling account of a man who dared to speak truth to power."One of India’s best-known and beloved judges, Justice Ahmadi was a true trailblazer. Chief Justice of India from 1994 to 1997, he was celebrated for fiercely safeguarding fundamental rights, upholding the tenets of the constitution, and advocating for swift justice delivery.In “The Fearless Judge,” a candid yet meticulously researched biography by his granddaughter, the journalist Insiyah Vahanvaty, readers are offered a rare glimpse not only into the career of a formidable judge – but also the mind of the man behind the robe.This intimate portrait, drawn from a rich treasure trove of Justice Ahmadi’s private writings, public speeches, and family memories, is a journey through the corridors of power, the complexities of legal reasoning, and a startlingly honest account of a man who dared to speak truth to power no matter the consequences.
REVIEWS
RESEARCH
Khan, A., & Vahanvaty, I. (2024). Ethnonationalist drivers of the Indian media truth telling crisis. In J. Harsin (Ed.), Re-thinking Mediations of Post-truth Politics and Trust: Globality, Culture, Affect (1st ed., pp. 196–218). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003388975-11
Vahanvaty, Bhattacharya and Singh (2022), Media Freedoms in Ethnonationalist Contexts: Exploring the intersection of ethnonationalism, an enabling media and the reduction of press freedom in India. King’s College, London.
Vahanvaty (2022), The Imperilment of Journalists and Crisis of Press Freedom in India. King’s College, London.
Justice Ahmadi Inaugural Distinguished Lecture, by Ahmadi Foundation in collaboration with NLSIU, Bangalore. July 2025
Pictured here: Dr. Ramchandra Guha and Insiyah Vahanvaty
Pictured here: Insiyah Vahanvaty with Justice U.U. Lalit.
Hosted by Jindal Global University -Book Launch and Keynote Lecture on Judicial Reflections: Legacies and Lessons from Justice Ahmadi's Era by former Chief Justice of India, Justice U.U. Lalit. September 2025
Pictured here: Dr. Abhishek Singhvi, Justice Rohinton Nariman, Insiyah Vahanvaty & Vikram Chandra
Pictured here: Insiyah Vahanvaty in conversation with veteran journalist Vikram Chandra
Inaugural Ahmadi Foundation Lecture on "Secularism and the Indian Constitution" by Hon. Justice Nariman and book launch of The Fearless Judge: The Life and Times of Justice A. M. Ahmadi. December 2024.
Panel discussion at BITS Law School on the occasion of World Day of Social Justice. February 2025.
Panel discussion at OP Jindal Global Global University. March 2025
India Womenpreneur Summit, Elite 100. New Delhi, February, 2025
Book event at Shiv Nadar University, Chennai. April 2025
Talk at Flame University, Pune. November 2024