Ashok Kumar Kaul, a retired Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Banaras Hindu University. Mr. Kaul has five books to his credit, three on Kashmir (Kashmir: Contested identity, Kashmir: fractured nativity and two fictions (Nativity reclaimed and Under Cover Bandipore), reviewed internationally, besides seventy publications that include research papers, chapters and popular articles. He has been a guest columnist for Hindustan, The Hindustan Times, The Rising Kashmir and Greater Kashmir over the years. To his credit he was awarded North- South Dialogue Fellowship, Austria, Shastri Indo-Canada Fellowship, Canada (1993) and Visiting lecture Series in state university Binghamton New York, Erasmus University Rotterdam, University of Alberta, Edmonton, International University Tokyo and recently in Seton Hall University, USA. He chaired the workshop on “Cultural Decentring” in 19th IMISE Conference at Oxford University. He was associated with the editorial work with Regional Editor international centre of Global Changes, Nautsweza, Poland (90-93), Gandhian Perspective (2004-2006), Referee to Current Sociology, (UK) and a member of Editorial Advisory Committee of Sociological Bulletin (2005-2007).
Besides being a member of Board of studies in many universities including a member of Governing Board of G.B. P. Institute of Social Sciences, he has been a UGC Visiting Fellow at Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, (2002), JNU (2005), Tezpur Central University (2004) and GND University Amritsar (2017).He has been also been nominated University of Jammu council member from 2021to 2024. He has also given invited presentations in IIT Kanpur, IT Jodhpur, IIT, Kharagpur, India international, New Delhi and Nehru Museum, New Delhi. He has been also associated with UPSC, UUPSC, Higher Education, UP and ICSSR and UGC activities in some capacity or other. Under his supervision nineteen students have been awarded their (PhD) doctorate degree. Prof. Kaul was nominated Chair Abroad by ICCR to University of Gothenburg, Sweden in 2013.The Organizing Committee of the IIAS (Baden-Baden Germany) has conferred Meritorious Award to Prof. Kaul in 2002 and on August 30th 2018, the institute admitted him the ‘Fellow of IIAS’.
Prof. Kaul is currently based in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh and Panchkula in Haryana.
