He writes about free speech and sci-fi. Now, Gautam Bhatia has won the Infosys Prize

Legal scholar Gautam Bhatia has won the Infosys Prize 2026 in Humanities and Social Sciences. A National Law School graduate who studied at Oxford and Yale, he has written five books on Indian law and the Constitution, while pursuing a parallel career as a science fiction writer and novelist today.Legal scholar Gautam Bhatia has won the Infosys Prize 2026 in Humanities and Social Sciences. (Photo: infosysprize)New Delhi,Nov 14, 2026 15:40 ISTA lawyer who questions how India's Constitution works, writes books on free speech and equality, and also has a career as a science fiction writer. Gautam Bhatia is not your conventional legal academic.The constitutional law scholar has now won the Infosys Prize 2026 in Humanities and Social Sciences, recognising his work on Indian law, constitutional values and the possibilities of building a fairer society.Bhatia's work goes beyond interpreting what the Constitution says. He examines what it should mean in a society where inequality persists and power is exercised not just by the state but also by private institutions.The Infosys Prize jury described him as the most dynamic legal scholar of the present generation, praising his intellectual range, research and ability to draw from disciplines such as economics, sociology, political theory and moral philosophy. FROM NATIONAL LAW SCHOOL TO OXFORD AND YALEBhatia's academic journey began at the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bengaluru, where he completed his BA LLB in 2011.He then went to Oxford's Balliol College as a Rhodes Scholar, earning a Bachelor of Civil Law degree in 2012 and an MPhil in Law in 2013. He pursued an LLM at Yale University in 2014 before returning to Oxford for his doctoral degree, which he completed in 2021. His academic journey has since taken him across institutions. He is currently a Green Fellow at the University of New South Wales, an adjunct professor at Jindal Global Law School and a practising lawyer in New Delhi.FIVE BOOKS THAT QUESTION HOW THE LAW WORKSBhatia's first book, Offend, Shock, Or Disturb: Free Speech Under the Indian Constitution, published in 2015, examined the tensions within India's constitutional approach to free speech.His 2019 book, The Transformative Constitution: A Radical Biography in Nine Acts, explored a central contradiction in the Constitution: how can the state be powerful enough to transform society and reduce inequality while also being restrained from exercising excessive power?In Horizontal Rights: An Institutional Approach (2023), he took the argument further, examining how private actors, and not just the government, can violate constitutional values.His other books include The Indian Constitution: A Conversation with Power and Unsealed Covers.The Infosys Prize jury particularly praised his ability to connect constitutional law with larger questions of equality, political economy and human dignity. His five books and extensive academic writing, it said, represent an exceptional body of work.HE WRITES SCIENCE FICTION TOOThere is another side to Bhatia that makes his profile particularly unusual. Alongside examining India's Constitution, he has built a parallel career as a science fiction novelist, with three novels to his name.His debut, The Wall (2020), imagines a city enclosed by an enormous wall, where scarce resources shape the social and political order. The story continues in The Horizon (2021), the second book in his Sumer duology.His third novel, The Sentence (2024), takes readers into another imagined political world. It begins with a man sentenced to a hundred years in suspended animation after being convicted of assassinating a president. When his case resurfaces a century later, questions of justice, power and the fate of an entire society come into play.The connection between his two writing careers is not entirely accidental. His fiction, like his legal scholarship, engages with questions of power, freedom, citizenship and how societies organise themselves.Bhatia is also the coordinating editor of Strange Horizons, an international science fiction and fantasy magazine. The Sentence went on to win the 2025 Ignyte Award for Best Novel.The Infosys Prize 2026 adds another distinction to a career that has already produced five books and extensive contributions to constitutional scholarship.- Ends