Alumni Feature | Kavya Bharadkar, Master’s in Public Policy ‘19

Kavya found her way towards public policy quite by accident, while studying law at ILS Law College, Pune. The disconnect between the law as taught in the classroom and the law as experienced in civic life left her with the sense that while litigation offered many answers and arguments, most legal professionals were not asking the right questions. Studying public policy seemed interesting particularly because it was so multidisciplinary – unlike contemporary legal education. She gravitated towards the program at NLS due to an affinity towards social policy. Part-time involvement with several part-time research projects at NLS across a range of disciplines – the rights of Devadasi women and their families, of slum dwellers to urban housing, of Sumangali workers in garment manufacturing, were very influential in shaping her career trajectory. An opportunity to work with the Centre for Labour Studies at NLS after her MPP helped strengthen her understanding of labour markets and regulation. Working as a Teaching Assistant for courses on Transformative Constitutionalism, Law and Development, and International Social Welfare gave her the first taste of an academic career. Kavya currently works with Aajeevika Bureau as a researcher. Working within the development sector offers her very close field engagement, and has led her to developing a more nuanced opinion on the diversity and complexity of employment relations in India. Working as a Visiting Faculty at NLSIU allows her to iterate between the two worlds of theory and praxis. She is an incoming doctoral student at the Bristol School of Management, where she will be researching labour regulation post Covid-19, focusing on sustainable regulation of medium and small-scale enterprises.