THE ‘ALTERNATIVE GUIDE’ TO THE RHODES SCHOLARSHIP

APPLICATION FROM INDIAN RHODES SCHOLARS

This guide is not an official communication from the Rhodes Trust. It was collaboratively
prepared by some Indian Rhodes Scholars to ensure that all applicants have equal access
to sufficient guidance for preparing the statements supporting their application for the
Rhodes Scholarships for India.

GENERAL TIPS
1. The Rhodes Scholarships for India application requires two statements in
support of the application – an academic statement of study and a
personal statement.
2. These statements are among the most important elements of the selection
process, and often form the basis of the subsequent interviews. While it is
reasonable to seek general guidance from professors and mentors during
the application process, it is important to ensure that the statements are
your own work and have not been reviewed or edited by anyone else prior
to submission.
3. In your academic statement of study, you are requested to detail the
reasons you are applying to Oxford, the subject you wish to study, your
course choices, why you wish to pursue them and to also demonstrate that
you are able to meet the entry and application requirements of the specific
course(s) you have chosen. Here it is important to do your research on
course choices at Oxford and describe why a particular subject or course
is relevant to your trajectory and will further your goals. You must also
describe the basis on which you believe you are eligible to be admitted to
this course, including your academic performance and related activities
that would be specifically relevant to course admission, which can be very
competitive at the University of Oxford.
4. The academic statement, particularly the portions on your areas of interest
and future study, should not be hyper-technical – such that only persons
well-versed in the field would be able to completely understand its
contents. At the same time, the panel reading your personal statement has
probably had years of experience in assessing statements and hence it

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 should not be highly simplistic either. The focus should be on
communicating your areas of interest with clarity, and your thought
process in arriving at these.
5. On the other hand, the personal statement is an opportunity to reflect your
story in writing. It is paramount that you avoid generalization and ensure
that the statement is presented in a professional, thoughtful and cogent
manner. Through your essay, you should give the reviewers a flavour of
your personality, interests, and goals – try and reflect what you would
want to communicate during an interview in person. Most importantly,
your personal statement should make the reviewer want to meet you and
further discuss and explore your interests with you. Remember that the
personal statement must represent you well enough such that if you are
invited to an interview, there should be clear congruence and integrity
between what you have written and who you are.
6. Through your personal statement, you should be able to convey to the
reviewers a story about the larger motivations that drive you, your work
and your aspirations. The personal statement should ideally have a theme
or focus, with the narrative connecting its various elements, whether it be
the discipline in which you are interested, ideas that drive your
aspirations, your work experience, your academic and non-academic
projects, your extra-curricular activities, and your longer-term ambitions.
The personal statement should thus be a cohesive whole, held together by
this narrative, rather than a collection of unrelated information. When
framing a balanced personal statement, do remember the criteria the
reviewers will be using to determine if you are a suitable candidate for the
Rhodes Scholarship – more about those specific criteria later.
7. Ensure that various aspects of your professional and personal life are
logically put together, as far as possible, between the two statements. The
reviewers, on reading the statements together should be able to discern
your motivations, your study plans, your career plans/future ambitions,
and your reasons for choosing these, while sensing a strong commitment
to your goals and a sense of clarity on how you wish to get there using the
opportunity that Oxford presents. It is crucial that your statements
highlight a clear link between your choices and the experiences you have

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 had. Do remember that these are primarily professional narratives, and,
on balance, you should avoid indulging in overly ‘personal’ flights of
fancy. Having said that, there is no one method to put these things
together. Do what works best for you and your story.
8. Ensure that the academic statement is within the 750-word limit and the
personal statement is within the 1000-word limit, each as stated in the
application rules. If either statement exceeds the word limit, the
application will not accept the additional words and your statement may
lose its structure.
9. Given the word limits, you cannot elaborate extensively on all points.
While the reviewers should be able to follow your train of thought, as
evident from the statements, your statements should also be thought
provoking, leaving room for further discussion and debate.
10. Your statements should not merely be a narration of your experiences and
accomplishments but should also describe to the reviewer the impact
these have had on you, and their contribution in defining your thought
process. Use these to further build your narrative.
11. Ensure that your statements are not merely a more elaborate version of
your résumé, as this would be a lost opportunity. The reviewer will
already have a copy of your résumé. The academic statement and personal
statement should instead connect your various relevant achievements,
qualifications, and experiences to a larger narrative, and describe their
impact on the choices you have made. At the same time, it is crucial that
your academic statement and personal statement are in sync with your
résumé. They should reflect the activities and accomplishments
mentioned in your résumé, but within a larger context; the résumé should,
in turn, reflect the details conveyed in your statement. The reviewer
should thus be able to make sense of the three documents together.
12. It is not necessary to use long sentences and complex language, in an
attempt to impress the reviewers. In fact, these might hinder readability.
It is best to stick to a style of writing you are comfortable with, as long as
it conveys the message adequately. Ensure that you have proofread the
essay multiple times, and there are no spelling or grammatical errors.

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 Sloppiness and carelessness are poor signs and are unlikely to be regarded
well.
13. To get started with the process of writing your statements, try thinking
about why you are doing what you are doing, what aspects of it most
excite you, the way in which the experiences of your last few years have
shaped you, etc. It is important to justify your candidacy for the Rhodes
Scholarship and to also justify your suitability as a candidate for the
course(s) of your choice, based on preliminary data (i.e., what you have
done so far to work towards your goals).
14. It is as important to clearly explain and locate the broader relevance of
your proposed work or proposed career path, keeping in mind that the
Rhodes Scholarship experience is structured to enable you to create some
kind of positive impact in the world.
15. Remember that applicants are rarely able to come up with comprehensive
and well-written statements on the first go. The key is to think about the
various elements that you want to put in them and then find a way of
connecting them together across the two statements.
16. It is important to remember that the Rhodes Scholarship not a need-based
scholarship. Providing gratuitous information about one’s family
background, injecting pathos or indications of need are not required and
will not in themselves strengthen your candidature. Of course, there are
no prohibitions on mentioning these if they are relevant to your story.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

I. GENERAL

A. Is there some prior preparation I should engage in, before writing the
statements?
- It could be useful to look at the website of the Rhodes Scholarships. The website,
for instance, lists certain criteria the panel looks for in every potential candidate
for the Scholarship. Try and ensure that your academic and personal statements
are broadly responsive to these criteria. It would also be helpful to read the will

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 of Cecil Rhodes, the founder of the Scholarship, to understand the motivations
with which the Scholarship was constituted.
- Further, the website also provides information about the Scholarship, along with
videos of Scholars from the previous years, narrating their experiences at Oxford
as a Rhodes Scholar, including their views on writing a personal statement and
the application process more generally.
- All candidates should also read carefully the Conditions of Tenure for the Rhodes
Scholarships and the information provided in the Rhodes India Memorandum.
Ensure that you meet the eligibility criteria in terms of nationality, age, education,
and academic achievement, as mentioned in Point 2 of the Rhodes India
Memorandum. Point 4(i) of the Rhodes India Memorandum details elements the
Trust looks for in an academic statement of study and point 4(j) of the Rhodes
India Memorandum details elements the Trust looks for in a personal statement.
- You could also browse the website of the University of Oxford, particularly the
graduate admissions page, to assess why Oxford might be a good fit for you and
the specific courses you may be eligible for and wish to apply to. It provides
information on the courses offered, eligibility criteria, the faculty involved,
research centres set up and pedagogic techniques utilized (e.g.: tutorials) along
with the non-academic activities available at Oxford.

B. How useful are the sample statements available online?

- It is important to remember that there is no fixed format for an academic or
personal statement. The most important element of a statement is that it is unique
to your case. To this extent, sample statements should not be blindly relied on as
a template, and emulated, since the elements introduced through the essay vary
from person to person. That being said, going through sample statements might
be helpful in assessing certain common elements among statements, and the
various methods available to convey information about yourself to the reviewer.
But try and do this after you’ve done some thinking of your own. Reading others’
statements can often influence your thought process in ways that are then
difficult to break out of.

The samples provided in the annexures here can help you in that regard.
However, please note that these statements were written before the component

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of an academic statement was introduced. The excerpts that have been provided
as samples of academic statements in this guide have been taken from successful
course applications to Oxford and may not have been read by the Rhodes selection
committees. Hence, these samples should be considered as merely indicative of
what a successful application may comprise and might not be wholly reflective
of the degree of detailed treatment that certain themes and/or issues can possibly
receive in your academic statement.

C. What are the four ‘Rhodes criteria’?

It is important that your statements together reflect that you fulfill elements of
the four criteria the Rhodes Scholarship looks for in its scholars. Literary and
scholastic achievements could include your academic performance, awards
received for such performance, role as a teaching or research assistant, academic
papers you may have published, academic conferences participated in and so on.
The energy to use one’s talents to the full could include involvement in a variety of
activities including sports, music, debate, dance, theatre, and artistic pursuits,
with special emphasis on teamwork. Truth, courage, devotion to duty, sympathy for
and protection of the weak, kindliness, unselfishness and fellowship could be
demonstrated through work with non-governmental organisations, involvement
in committees at your University focusing on public service, participation in
activities contributing to society in some manner at the school, community or
college level, personal interventions you may have made on issues you care
about and so on. Moral force of character and instincts to lead, and to take an interest
in one's fellow beings requires you to showcase your forays at leadership, public-
spiritedness and other-centredness. Leadership can be of different sorts and there
is no one definition: this could include leading a student union, heading a
committee at your University, convening a course, leading a protest, organising
awareness movements and camps, organising activities at your University
including conferences, competitions and fests, being an Editor of a journal, or
playing an active role in teams that collectively performed the above activities.
Even small-scale but no less impactful examples, like facilitating class
conversation, or mediating conflicts and incidents of crisis, can demonstrate
one’s integrity. Anything that may have inspired others counts. The criteria are
broad enough for you to think about your experiences in detail, and consider

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which ones you would want to highlight to demonstrate that you meet each of
them.

D. Does an aspiration of pursuing a particular professional path either lower

or enhance one’s chances of getting the Scholarship? Further, are there any
weaknesses in one’s profile that foreclose one’s possibility of winning the
Scholarship?
It is critical to bear in mind that there is no "perfect" Rhodes Scholar. The four
criteria set out by the Rhodes Trust are the guiding principles for the scholarship,
and even a cursory glance at the list of past scholars and successful candidates
reveals that these criteria allow for a remarkable degree of diversity. This being
the case, it would be wrong to think that the Rhodes Trust prioritizes applicants
aspiring to pursue a particular professional path over others who may intend to
pursue a professional path not commonly linked with Rhodes Scholars.

Our advice for an applicant would be to not get bogged down by what you might
yourself perceive as a grave weakness in your profile, such as being from an
unfamiliar university or not having participated in sporting activities. There is
no uniform way in which all successful applicants meet the Rhodes criteria. Just
as there is no one thing that is likely to make your application successful, it is
equally true that one single perceived weakness is unlikely to overshadow many
strengths in the application. There are many ways to satisfy the Rhodes criteria
and each is unique.

Further, while political affiliations and ideas expressed in your written personal
statements may not influence the application's evaluation, it is important to
contextualise ideas within the scope of your work, academics, and larger goals -
however it best conveys your story.

Finally, instead of altering your aspirations and goals in a way that you feel
would ensure that your application is viewed in a more favourable light by the
Rhodes Trust, you would be well advised to focus on building a narrative around
your achievements and strengths that is authentic and that you feel truly invested
in.

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E. Should I mention prior work experience in the field, considering it is
already in my résumé, which is submitted along with the application?
It is not necessary to list all your prior work experience in the field in either your
academic or personal statement, as this information should have already found
its way into your résumé. However, it could be useful to mention the particular
experience(s) that helped mould your thinking and define your interests.
Depending on the purpose of mentioning your prior work experience, you can
either incorporate it in your personal statement or your academic statement, the
choice is yours! These can be incorporated into the larger narrative that you
present in your personal statement or could be used to evidence your interest in
a particular course in your academic statement. These statements give you the
chance to contextualise prior work experience, detailing failures or stumbling
blocks that you encountered on the road to achieving the outcomes listed in your
CV. Mention particularly what you learnt from these experiences and how they
contributed to helping you identify what you wish to study, drawing a clear
thread between the work you have done previously and the work you hope to
do in the future.

Here, a candidate refers to a study she conducted, which helped them identify
certain interests crucial to their research.

Course: Economics (M. Phil.)

Fascinated by one of the attempts to eliminate injustices in the domain of health,
I chose to independently study the Rasthriya Swasthya Bima Yojana – RSBY
(National Health Insurance Scheme) in my summer this year. The scheme
provides a handsome health insurance cover to the population below poverty
line to deliver social security. I interviewed these beneficiaries to study how their
lives changed.
While, philosophical parleys with peers at college always tend to bend to
one side, either extreme libertarian or extreme socialist; I have learnt through this
study how private sector, government and the poor can all come together in a
symbiotic manner and create mutual benefits. Research has been a delightful
discovery and the search for truth has instilled a new knowledge hunger in me –

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to find out bits of truth from the ground and supplement the mathematical rigor
of economics with empirical evidence. Most importantly, I have learnt how
technology and efficient delivery can create a workable incentive matrix and
create social change.

In this extract, a candidate recounts work engaged in during several projects,

drawing out their interests based on these experiences.

Course: Organic Chemistry (D. Phil.)

In the summer of 20xx, I worked on Resonance Raman spectra of bound end
products of the human Hypoxanthine – Guanine Phosphoribosyl Transferase
(HGPRT) enzyme at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS). Later
work would involve comparison with spectra of bound end products with
malarial analogue of the enzyme, which would thereby help design a specific
inhibitor for the malarial enzyme, which is known to have different substrates
from human HGPRT, despite having considerable sequence homology.
In 20xx, I was awarded the Indian Academy of Sciences Summer Research
Fellowship to work at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and
Biotechnology (ICGEB), where I synthesized and studied the aggregation of the
human Islet Amyloid Polypeptide (hIAPP). The aggregation of this peptide has
been found to induce pancreatic β-cell death, and has thus been implicated in the
pathology of Type II Diabetes. I attempted to study its aggregation pathway and
its association with aggregation inhibitors, which could potentially be used to
enhance the current treatment of Diabetes.
Although each of these summer projects were only two months long, the
knowledge I gained, and the passion I discovered for biochemistry has inspired
me to pursue long term research in these fields. I feel proud to have some part in
the fight against malaria and diabetes, and am absolutely geared up for more. I
am excited by the opportunity to pursue my D. Phil. at Oxford, as I believe I
would get the opportunity to bring together my formal education in Chemistry
with my interest in biological sciences involving extremely interesting, but also
socially beneficial research.

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F. How important is it that my long-term plans should involve coming back
to India?
There is no compulsion to state that you wish to come back to India, and your
leadership and social impact could be anywhere – the Rhodes Scholarships have
as their mission facilitating the journeys of those who ‘stand up for the world’. You
could make your impact while teaching in a university in India, or equally by
litigating at the International Criminal Court in Hague. As important as the
details of your long-term plans is a clear explanation of how the Rhodes
Scholarship and studying at Oxford will help you pursue them.

G. The Rhodes Scholarship requires four letters of recommendation. Who

should I approach for these and when?
Persons giving you letters of recommendation should be familiar with you, and
your work. To this extent, rather than looking for recommendations from well-
known persons, you should approach people you have worked with
substantially and who know you and your work as a result of this engagement.
Needless to say, they should not be people who you have a personal relationship
with, such as members of your family.

As per the application rules, three of these letters have to be academic, implying
that you have to ask people who have taught you during your undergraduate or
postgraduate degree. They have to be able to comment in detail on your academic
ability and be confident that you will fare well at Oxford. Which of your teachers
you choose is up to you - for instance, you could approach those who have taught
you subjects particularly relevant to your stated areas of interest, or those whom
you have worked with as a teaching or research assistant as part of coursework.

The fourth letter may either be a character, or a professional reference. The letter
could be written by someone you have interned with, a teacher from your school,
a sports coach, dance teacher, etc. This referee will have to - and should have had
the experiences that enable them to - attest to your character and/or your
involvement in extracurricular/service or leadership activities, commenting

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critically about whether you fulfil the non-academic requirements of the
Scholarship.

Since your referees may be called upon later to speak about you with the
selectors, and given that you may later choose to submit these very academic
references as part of your separate application (if you are eventually awarded the
scholarship) to Oxford, you should choose your referees wisely. Ideally, your
referees should be people who know you and your work and can comment
meaningfully on your interactions.

A good referee is not one who might write a generic reference that overstates
your abilities but should be someone who will have personal insights to offer.
When read together, your references should be able to provide a working image
of who you are as a person and how you fulfill the four Rhodes Scholarship
criteria. You are expected to have discussed your motivations and aspirations
with all your referees at some length. Your referees should not be people who
only incidentally know you but those who have been your well-wishers for quite
some time.

It is ideal to approach your potential referees at least 6-8 weeks before the
reference submission deadline in order to give them sufficient notice and avoid
any delays.

Point 4(k) of the Rhodes India Memorandum, along with the ‘Guidance for
Referees’ appended to the Memorandum provides information on the nature of
references the Trust requires.

H. At the time of applying, I will not be able to provide official transcripts for
the entire duration of my degree since I will complete my studies only after
the application process. Is this acceptable?
Many Rhodes candidates apply for the scholarship in the final year of their
current degree and, therefore, have not completed their studies at the time of
application. In that case, it is perfectly fine to submit official transcripts for the
terms or semesters you have completed thus far in your degree.

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I. Does the age at which one decides to apply for the Scholarship have a
bearing on one’s chances of being chosen as a Rhodes Scholar? Does the
fact that you were unsuccessful in a previous attempt to get the Scholarship
negatively impact one’s chances?
Your age (as long as it falls within the bounds set out by the memorandum) is
not a deterrent to your chances of winning the scholarship. In other words,
whether or not you are awarded the Scholarship will be a function of your ability
to meet the criteria that the Rhodes Trust is looking for, and not of the age at
which you apply. Relatedly, it is important to note that multiple attempts at the
scholarship are allowed, and don’t work against you – there have been multiple
Rhodes Scholars who have won it on their second attempt.

J. Will I be required to submit any test scores at the time of applying for the
Scholarship, such as English proficiency test results or GRE scores?
The Rhodes Scholarship application process does not require the candidate to
pass any qualifying exams (GRE, Subject GREs, etc.) or language proficiency
exams (TOEFL, IELTS, etc.) but the specific course that you are applying to may
do so. Since your application for your chosen course at the University of Oxford
is to be submitted after scholarship results are released, there is no need to submit
any test scores along with the Rhodes Scholarship application.

K. What is the section titled “Is there any other information that you would
like to add to your application?” meant for?
This space is provided for candidates who wish to make a clarification about
some aspect of their application (for example, a grade on their transcript,
additional details about one or more of the documents they have submitted, etc.)
or provide some other pertinent information that it has not been possible to
mention elsewhere in the application. If you don’t feel the need to provide any
such clarification or supplementary information, you can leave this space blank.
Importantly, this should not be used as an extension to your academic statement
or personal statement or to add information that the word limits did not provide
you an opportunity to include.

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L. What if I have further questions?
We have set up an informal Google Group that you can join. It is not mandatory
to join it. Remember that the Rhodes Trust remains the only and final authority
on the conduct of the interview. However, if you want to access the Google
Group to ask us questions on an informal basis, you click here.

We are also including a recording of a webinar where current Rhodes Scholars

discuss the process of crafting an application here. This webinar occurred before
the academic statement was introduced, but still has advice that you might find
helpful.

We have also annexed to this guide a few personal statements of previous

candidates (which have been anonymized). We would like to emphasise once
again that there is no set format a personal statement has to follow. These have
been provided solely as examples for guidance and should not be relied on as
templates.

II. ACADEMIC STATEMENT

M. Are there certain elements that an academic statement must mandatorily

have?
The separate academic statement should ideally be thought of as a springboard
for ideating about and writing the statement of purpose and/or research proposal
for your eventual University of Oxford course application. However, not all
courses will require such a statement and/or proposal. The academic statement
should nonetheless provide a tentative plan of study or research at the university
and delineate the broad field you are academically interested in.

The academic statement should reflect an awareness of the existing literature in

your proposed field of study, and in the case of research degrees, an identifiable
research hypothesis or problem OR alternatively, questions that you wish to
probe while pursuing your course at Oxford. You may choose to talk about past
academic and/or professional experiences (such as publications, conferences,
internships), a methodological outline and relevant skills that you possess in the

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academic statement, so as to highlight why you might be a good fit for the
proposed course of study. You may also flag the research centres, libraries,
archival collections, and/or laboratories where you will be interested to study and
work, while at Oxford. In this regard, your specific academic objectives can also
be demonstrably tied to the long-term goals or vision that you may have.

Since the Rhodes Scholarships are awarded for the minimum duration of two
years, it is important to lay down a tentative academic plan beyond the first year
of your scholarship, in case you are applying for a one-year degree. Some
scholars go on to do a DPhil after their first year at Oxford, while others often
apply for another one-year degree course. Career trajectories are unique to every
individual and you need not emulate others without giving some thought to a
plan of your own.

Your academic statement should give some sense of what you want to do at
Oxford and how you wish to go about it. An academic statement, however,
should NOT be used to merely narrate your CV, as that would be a lost
opportunity. You will not always have everything figured out beforehand.
Nonetheless, you may always use your academic statement to reasonably
anticipate the gains of pursuing a particular course at Oxford: it may be some
kind of technical expertise that you wish to acquire or even the prospect of
working with a certain faculty member in your preferred department.

You may also consider discussing certain ethical questions that may have arisen
in your mind, in case they are relevant for your immediate research plans. Above
all, your academic statement should evoke a feeling of genuine interest, academic
promise, and clarity of thought. For more information on the distinction between
the personal and the academic statements, see Rhodes India Memorandum
points 4(i) and 4(j).

Finally, you must also demonstrate your eligibility for the course and that you
meet the admission criteria. This could include the courses/degrees you have
completed or are in the course of completing, your academic standing (including

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grades and ranking) and other things that would enable an application to the
course to succeed.

Here, a candidate explains in their essay how they developed an interest in

economics.

Course: Economics (M. Phil.)

Five years ago, I chose to opt for economics out of sheer enthusiasm of exploring
it. I wanted to study a discipline which could understand the social complex of
interrelationships objectively and evaluate it quantitatively. Over time, I have
discovered the depths of the discipline and the implements it equips its follower
with. Economics principles are like a toolchest. Through analytical frameworks
and models, I feel equipped with more gear at the end of every lecture. The
freedom it bestows on its student is just so enthralling – one could study anything
from markets in education to health to nuclear physics. This limitless horizon has
allowed me to explore my minor fields in depth along with my major. My
philosophical inclinations along with a brush with Boulding’s views on going
beyond the rudimentary and strait-jacket assumptions of the discipline have
motivated me to integrate my everyday ruminations with the principles of
economics.
As I look ahead at the expanding horizon that economics has thrown open
for me, I see myself doing an M. Phil in Economics from Oxford. This would
equip me with more tools in my toolbox and allow me to understand the world
of inequalities and injustices better. I have had a vibrant exposure to financial
markets and live trading in a stock exchange during my internship and I have
seen the world of poignant injustices. Capital markets offer huge dividends and
bonuses, of a scale and size that people down the poverty lane, below the poverty
line cannot even dream of. I aim to use my learning from the study of social sector
schemes in developing countries and that about capital markets to arrive at
logical solutions. An M. Phil in Economics will provide me an academic base and
better foundational framework within which these inequalities could be
examined. I shall be in a better position to assess various developmental
strategies and propose better solutions, most importantly. A dedicated focus on

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academic research at Oxford will help me explore the world further and allow
me to go beyond limited model-specific assumptions of the discipline.

Here, a candidate explains in their essay how they developed an interest in

international criminal law.

Course: Law (Bachelor of Civil Law)

The intersection between criminal law and constitutional guarantees triggered
my interest in constitutional law – a direct result of my quest to understand
broader issues of accountability for mass rights violations. My passion for
constitutional and comparative constitutional law led to the three papers I
published or presented in University, my membership on the Editorial Board of
the Environmental Law and Practice Review, and my role in organising the first
ever Mock Constituent Assembly Debate at my University. I particularly enjoyed
working on a comparison of the judicial attitudes towards secularism in India
and Israel, since this helped me gain a practical understanding of the operation
of law in both jurisdictions. This manuscript was accepted for publication in the
prestigious Student Law Review at my University.
Such an interest finds reflection in my grades - I topped the constitutional
law course in my third year and received the highest possible grade in a
Comparative Law course while on exchange at the University of Illinois. My
exchange program, for which I was selected based on my academic
achievements, broadened my outlook towards social issues by understanding
how they manifest themselves in developing and developed societies.
The potential of the systems of criminal justice dispensation was brought
out in full force for me once again when I studied international criminal law.
Slowly, painfully, the world had witnessed the establishment of a permanent,
international criminal tribunal and I realised with a thrill that my generation had
been entrusted with the responsibility of making it successful. This desire to
promote international criminal law led to my participation in the Henry Dunant
Moot organised by the International Committee of the Red Cross and the
activities I undertook as an Executive Board Member of the University
International Law Society. It is with a view to understanding the relationship

16
between law and mass atrocities that I opted for the Law and Anthropology of
Violence course this semester.

In this extract, a candidate elaborates on their future career plans in their personal
statement, justifying these based on work they have previously undertaken.

Course: Material Sciences (M.Sc.)

Why such excitement and fuss over solar energy one might ask. Well, the sun’s
energy is bestowed upon us as a precious gift, free of cost, every single day. Just
consider the magnitude of the gift. The earth receives 4.3x1020 J of solar energy
every hour which is more energy than mankind uses in one calendar year! In
addition solar technologies are clean and do not emit harmful green house gases
that contribute to global warming. Nevertheless, this technology is still not cost
competitive with traditional fossil fuel based technology. This is because fossil
fuel technology has had a head start of two hundred years. It is my belief that
changes in policy will be crucial to bridge this gap and lead to the large scale
deployment of solar technologies quickly.
Vested interests in the fossil fuel lobby delay the progress of solar
technology. I got a taste of this when I did an internship in Delhi and presented
a paper on ‘The Hydrocarbon Sector of India’. Energy is the biggest barometer
that measures political pressure as; if the cost of fuel rises the government
becomes unpopular. This is true for governments of all countries. Therefore,
despite the obvious advantages of solar energy most governments are uneasy
about antagonizing those vested interests of fossil fuels. India needs policy
makers who recognize the urgency of shifting to solar energy sources and I wish
to be one of them.

N. Is it acceptable to propose a course of study at Oxford that is not directly

related to what I studied as an undergraduate?
It is certainly possible for you to state a course in your academic statement that
is not directly related to your current major/undergraduate course. However,
you will need to cogently explain and justify your reasons for doing so in your
academic statement. The selection committee will be interested in obtaining a
clear idea about your chosen area of study, how you came to be interested in it,

17
and what you have done thus far to deepen your engagement with that field.
This can be done by reflecting on your past academic and work experience and
identifying the elements that have shaped your interest in your chosen area of
study. In other words, it is important that you think carefully about your
motivations for pursuing a different stream of study and articulate those reasons
clearly.

O. Is it alright for me to state a course in my academic statement which is not

directly related to what I want to do in the future?
The Rhodes Trust is interested in understanding how an education at Oxford fits
in with your future career plans. While it is certainly understandable that one’s
eventual career trajectory may differ somewhat from one’s initial plans, it is
important to have a certain degree of clarity on why you wish to study a
particular course at Oxford University and how that will steer you towards the
career you are interested in. Therefore, it is alright to select any course so long as
you can clearly explain how this course will benefit you in your chosen career. In
your academic statement, it will be beneficial to show coherence with respect to
the course you are pursuing, the course you intend to pursue at Oxford, and your
career plans.

P. How do I show that the University of Oxford is a good fit for me?
Your application should clearly specify what aspect of the training you would
receive at Oxford makes it unique, and particularly suited to your interests. One
way to do this is to identify certain specific courses, and subjects within these
courses, which are relevant to your interests (though these choices might change
by the time you ultimately get to Oxford). You could also look at faculty you
would like to work with, research centres at Oxford specializing in your area of
interest, the teaching methodology at Oxford (the tutorial system), the academic
and social culture at Oxford or other factors which you can relate to, or a
combination of all of these. Try and avoid generic remarks about Oxford’s
academic environment, history or excellence, and tailor the reasons to suit your
background and interests, thus personalizing your essay.

18
Two candidates use a combination of several of these factors to show why Oxford
would be the ideal next step for their careers.

Course: Law (Bachelor of Civil Law)

Given that my ultimate goal is to work in the field of international criminal law—
whether through fieldwork, academia or practice—I feel that the BCL course is
ideal for me. Many of the courses on offer seem to be tailored to specifically suit
my interests. For instance, the aforementioned cross-section between criminal
and constitutional law is the thrust of the Criminal Justice and Human Rights
course. Again, I feel that my understanding of individual liability for war crimes
will be enhanced by understanding how the humanitarian law regime works in
that context, through the International Law and Armed Conflict course. The
structure of the BCL course is another incentive. Oxford University offers the
unique advantage of being focused on personal tutorials, while still allowing for
independence of research. I believe that such guidance will equip me better to
realise my dream of engaging in the international criminal law regime.

Course: Material Sciences (M.Sc.)

In order to amalgamate my technological insights with a clear understanding of
the politics, economics and social aspects of the world’s energy scenario, I intend
to pursue a one-year M.Sc. degree in Environmental Change and Management in
Oxford. This is a very specific program designed for people who are interested
in fighting climate change. I believe that the skills I will acquire from this
program will allow me to be able to frame energy policies for India. The program
at Oxford is the best of its kind in the world inasmuch as the program is a fusion
of people from diverse backgrounds who are associated with ministries, the
United Nations and with research and development. In addition, the curriculum
includes several project-based assignments and field trips. I believe that hands
on learning is the best method in the dynamic field of energy and thus I feel as
though the program was tailored for me.
I am keen on following this up with a one-year M.Sc. degree in Materials
Science as Oxford is famous for its research on renewable energy devices, in
particular, second generation solar cells. Materials are the key to achieving a

19
fundamental breakthrough in this field. A Master’s degree in Materials Science
would enable me to pursue my love of the sciences and pave the way for a future
PhD in solar cells. Oxford has achieved several fundamental break-throughs in
metal oxide solar photovoltaics. It is for this reason that I believe Oxford is the
best place for me to carry out research.
I am also deeply interested in going to Oxford because it has a vibrant
chess scene. I have won the national chess tournament in India and I have
participated in some International tournaments where I have won prizes. The
Rhodes scholarship will allow me to pursue my dream and I hope with all my
heart that I will be given a chance to do so.

Q. If I am applying for a one-year degree, do I also need to talk about what I

will do in my second Rhodes year?
Point 4(i)(i) of the Rhodes India Memorandum requires your academic statement
to provide an indication of your plans for the second year in case you are listing
a one-year course. The academic statement should provide a firm idea of which
course/courses are viable for you to study at the University of Oxford, given that
all Oxford courses are not covered by the Rhodes Scholarship. Applicants should
refer to the Conditions of Tenure on the Rhodes House Website for details
regarding permitted degrees/degree combinations. For applicants interested in
pursuing a second B.A. degree please see guidance under ‘Procedure after
Selection’ at point 6(c) of the Rhodes India Memorandum. It is fine to mention
just the one degree in your personal statement if you feel that it might make your
statement more focused. It is also good to have a sense of what you would want
to do in the second year in preparation for the interview round, where it may
come up. Whatever route you choose, the emphasis is on having clarity of
thought and a desired course of action that matches this.

While it is quite common for candidates to mention only the first one-year course
in their applications, the candidate below mentions a two-year plan.

Course: Women’s Studies (M.St.) and Film Aesthetics (M.St.)

Oxford offers two Master of Studies courses in Film Aesthetics and Women’s
Studies, both under the Department of Modern Languages, and ancillary

20
Humanities’ departments like History and Philosophy, allowing me to critically
engage with practical implications of feminist film theory, through one-on-one
mentoring, tutorial work, and resources available at the Bodleian library and
Taylor Institution.

R. As an applicant from a science background, how can I convey my passion

for a very technical subject in an accessible fashion and situate it within the
broader context of my other interests and larger goals?
As mentioned in the General Tips section above, your focus should be on
communicating your areas of interest with clarity, in language that captures the
nuances of the points that you are trying to convey but is at the same time
accessible for a generalist audience. Annexure II to this Guide contains an essay
submitted by a Rhodes Scholar from a science background that effectively
balances these conflicting interests. Additionally, Annexure III contains excerpts
from applications to Oxford that demonstrate some approaches to recounting
academic experiences. It is important to remember that your academic statement
may not be read (at least initially) only by specialists in your particular field.
Focusing on the importance and impact of your work in your journey rather than
the technical procedural details will generally make for a more compelling
statement.

III. PERSONAL STATEMENT

S. Are there certain elements that a personal statement must mandatorily

have?
As mentioned above, there is no set format that a personal statement should
follow. However, as we understand it, through your personal statement the panel
expects to obtain a clear idea about your motivations, the areas of your interest,
and what you have done to develop these interests/ how they came to be your
core interests. At its core, the personal statement is your chance to showcase your
unique perspective by drawing on the experiences that have shaped it and
highlighting how it shapes your engagement with your academic field of study
and your goals for the future. The panel also looks for whether the University of
Oxford is a good fit for these interests, although we could assume that your

21
academic statement is the main document through which they will ascertain this.
Finally, the panel is interested in understanding how an education at Oxford and
the Rhodes scholarship fits into your future plans. While it might be difficult to
exactly identify what your future path may look like, it is useful to have an idea
of what career options you are considering and why. You can address these
elements in any manner you desire, as long as you are able to clearly convey your
thoughts to the reviewer.

For example, a candidate details their areas of interest and how they lead to their
goals.

Course: Women’s Studies (M.St.) and Film Aesthetics (M.St.)

Deeply invested in the politics of art and performance as sites for both
normalization and subversion, I aspire to explore how space and time are reified,
recast and rendered through filmic languages—imaginary lines, color, bodies,
light, background scores. Moreover, the politics of (participatory) spectatorship,
interrogating the ‘male gaze’, film theatres as spaces for aspiration and creation,
active mediation by audiences through intra-audience interactions, new media
technologies, and memory-- provide crucial arenas for research, particularly in
the Indian subcontinent. I aim to address these questions through the vantage of
filmic and gendered intertextualities. Keen to examine how cinema shapes and
negotiates the feminine, and within the feminine, narrative ideals and deviations,
it is imperative to me that this exercise is not situated in an academic vacuum.
In the future, I aim to teach film through film, exploring the possibilities,
limitations and challenges the audio-visual possesses in pedagogy. I hope to
bridge the gulf between theory and praxis, between seas of words and worlds of
seeing, working on feminist media technologies and texts—both through the
creative and the academic. It is my dream to establish screenwriting and
filmmaking labs and schools, affording access to story-tellers whose voices have
been subordinated, often along the intersections of class, race, caste, gender
expression, and sexual orientation. I want to explore the ethics of aesthetics,
through blank spaces— simple subtitles change audience viewing and
mediation, and silently (violently) determine the intended audience.

22
T. What should my opening paragraph for the personal statement cover?
A strong opening can be one way to distinguish your personal statement from
those of other candidates. It helps to catch the attention of the reviewer right at
the beginning, making them curious about how you will develop your story from
that point. There is no set formula for what could be an interesting beginning.
The opening should ideally be a reflection of the central theme in your statement,
thus setting the tone for the entire essay. There is no real value in providing a
striking quote from someone famous, especially if it has nothing to do with the
personal statement.

In the extract below, a candidate begins their essay by talking about a movie,
which left a profound impact on them, tying together different concepts which
have always been a source of interest for them.

Course: Law (Bachelor of Civil Law)

A homosexual client. A homophobic lawyer. A deadly, incurable disease. An
unsympathetic law firm. A quest for justice. As a third year law student, I
watched Philadelphia, horrified as the narrative of sexual taboos and the
resultant social condemnation overpowered humane considerations towards a
life-threatening disease. Philadelphia made me think- long and hard- about the
link between gender, sexuality and health, putting a name to and forging a nexus
between concepts that have always fascinated me.

Here, a candidate begins their essay by recalling a childhood memory.

Course: Genomic Medicine and Statistics (D.Phil.)

My first student was my younger sister. She would sit trapped amid a rag-tag
bunch of stuffed toys as I “lectured” on my latest scientific fancy. My family
teases that I was a professor even then, six years old and already explaining the
water cycle or floral anatomy to my eclectic audience. My hapless sister, often at
the receiving end of my soliloquies, is now so weary of this that she has
abandoned the pursuit of science altogether to study law instead. Yet my
enthusiasm for science and science education remain undeterred.

23
U. What kind of non-academic experiences should I mention in the personal
statement?
The personal statement should not be limited to purely academic aspects of your
life. In fact, it might be prudent to include overtly academic concerns,
achievements, and activities in your academic statement. The personal statement
can be considered as an opportunity to foreground issues that matter to you,
discuss your talents and passions, and mention anything that you think
substantiates your claim of fulfilling the various scholarship criteria. As
mentioned above, the Rhodes Scholarships focus on several criteria beyond the
scholastic ability of the candidate, and your engagement in various non-academic
activities could demonstrate these qualities. However, once again, try to weave
these accomplishments in to the larger narrative of your essay. Please remember
that the Rhodes Scholarship is not a recognition for past achievements but an
investment into the future of someone who is willing to “stand up for the world”.
The personal statement, therefore, is an excellent avenue to showcase your
vision, for the future of yourself, your community, and the world at large.

V. I took a year off to work after my graduation, but spent my time working
on something unrelated to my core research interests. How should I make
sense of this in the statements?
If the work experience is absolutely unrelated to your area of interest, there is no
strict need to mention it in either of the statements. Remember: the personal
statement is about taking your narrative forward. If something does not take
your narrative forward, it need not find space in your personal statement.
However, often things that seem ‘unrelated’ can be ‘related’ if they lead to skill
building that will ultimately help your long-term project. These skills can be
mentioned in your academic statement. For example, you may have acquired
practical or soft skills that would facilitate the realisation of your long-term plans.

24
 ANNEXURE I

The lights dim, my eyes skim the audience. We are watching Fishing at the Stone
Weir, two parts of Quentin Brown’s project documenting the lives of Netsilik
Eskimos. Subtitles are provided for the hearing-impaired, but I notice something
is amiss—every time the Netsilik people speak, [non-English narration] blares
from below the frame, reducing their language’s complexity to merely something
we are not required to comprehend. Absence of human conversation is
abbreviated to [sil.], short for silence. Crashing waves, sounds of the industrious
architects creating the weir, breaths a woman takes as she braids her hair-- all
relegated to [sil.].

The lights dim, my eyes skim the audience. My second public performance, I
perform an intensely personal and political piece responding to misogyny in pop
culture. I gather strength from the sea of faces staring at me, indulging me,
laughing with me, not at me. My universe of verse is all about pace- fast, seething,
breathing, multiple rhymes. Beginning in haste, I try to say as much as I can
within the first minute. Slowly, however, I register the audience’s response. It is
in that silence I realize that my poetry truly belongs.

I have explored my own motivations and imperatives, concluding that I am

fascinated by silences, by absences—that which we render mundane, profane,
not worthy of enquiry. Fortunate to have been guided by undergraduate history
and literature professors, I’ve realized that processes of inscription and
documentation are as much projects of concealment as they are of discovery.
After multiple (and admittedly, challenging) trysts with Foucault in libraries, I
want to interrogate those lapses, the absence of filmic texts as legitimate sources
of academia, the absence of women/ femme and queer voices behind the screen,
and indeed, to engage with the problematic of what makes a woman a woman,
what makes a film a film, what happens when films make women, and when
women make films?

I have approached pro-filmic realities at pre-production, due to my background

in theatre and amateur screenwriting, production through the two projects I

25
undertook for my classes and videos of my poetry pieces, and in post-production,
with sales and marketing initiatives, as part of my internship with XYZ. I have
however, yet to explore the philosophy and ontology of film itself—the
languages in and through which it is articulated, the activation of the past
through the present, the imposition of the present’s politics on the past, and how
films are constantly being created—not just through processes of production, but
those of consumption.

Similarly, I have recognised and expressed my feminist politics through my art—

registering protest against the hystericisation of the feminine, queerphobia and
menstrual taboos through slam poetry. As a working member and later head
coordinator for the Gender Studies Cell at my University, I interacted with
luminaries in the field of gender-based and sexual equality, and organisations
addressing child abuse, sex work and marital rape. I have feminist awakenings
while reading Judith Butler, writing poems as catharsis, or reading feminist film
theory by Teresa de Lauretis, yet it is only when I ask people what personal
pronouns they use, or unlearn the everyday ways in which the patriarchy
manifests itself that I feel I have received an education.

It is in pursuit of these perceived trivialities, these educations hidden in what we

confirm as mundane—like intimate human interaction in the frenzy of the
subway, or histories of the humble bench in my neighborhood park—that I turn
to Oxford. Oxford offers two Master of Studies courses in Film Aesthetics and
Women’s Studies, both under the Department of Modern Languages, and
ancillary Humanities’ departments like History and Philosophy, allowing me to
critically engage with practical implications of feminist film theory, through one-
on-one mentoring, tutorial work, and resources available at the Bodleian library
and Taylor Institution.

Deeply invested in the politics of art and performance as sites for both
normalization and subversion, I aspire to explore how space and time are reified,
recast and rendered through filmic languages—imaginary lines, color, bodies,
light, background scores. Moreover, the politics of (participatory) spectatorship,
interrogating the ‘male gaze’, film theatres as spaces for aspiration and creation,

26
active mediation by audiences through intra-audience interactions, new media
technologies, and memory-- provide crucial arenas for research, particularly in
the Indian subcontinent. I aim to address these questions through the vantage of
filmic and gendered intertextualities. Keen to examine how cinema shapes and
negotiates the feminine, and within the feminine, narrative ideals and deviations,
it is imperative to me that this exercise is not situated in an academic vacuum.

In the future, I aim to teach film through film, exploring the possibilities,
limitations and challenges the audio-visual possesses in pedagogy. I hope to
bridge the gulf between theory and praxis, between seas of words and worlds of
seeing, working on feminist media technologies and texts—both through the
creative and the academic. It is my dream to establish screenwriting and
filmmaking labs and schools, affording access to story-tellers whose voices have
been subordinated, often along the intersections of class, race, caste, gender
expression, and sexual orientation. I want to explore the ethics of aesthetics,
through blank spaces— simple subtitles change audience viewing and
mediation, and silently (violently) determine the intended audience. Poetry is
about enunciation, and renunciation. I seek to pursue a double major in Film
Aesthetics and Women Studies at Oxford to find the joy in exploring silences,
and to triumph in the silences that joy affords.

27
 ANNEXURE II

I would like to begin by talking about my years of schooling.

The first thing I was struck by was the importance given to questions, discussions
and conversation. No question was ever dismissed as being trivial or
insignificant. Rather, we were encouraged to come up with more of them, think
about them deeply and converse with one another. In the process, I learnt three
things at a very young age. One, I had a voice and mind of my own, and was
capable of thinking constructively about any subject. Two, it was supremely
important to listen carefully with an open mind. Lastly, every discussion needn't
end with a definite conclusion -oftentimes the questions we were left with were
greater sources of learning.

A particularly significant period was my year as a Class 11 student. As a part of

our curriculum, we had to work with an NGO in Kanchipuram, and later that
year, worked in the ABC and DEF in Maharashtra, and GHI and JKL in Rajasthan.
It was the first time I engaged with deeply complex issues like education,
sanitation, water and food distribution, women's rights and land ownership, and
it was a very humbling experience. I remember being frustrated because it took
me weeks just to appreciate the many layers to the problems, much less find a
way that I could meaningfully contribute. I came into intimate contact with a
world starkly different from mine. These interactions have made me look
critically at how I live my own life, the choices I make and my place in the world
around me.

These two aspects of my education grew into aspects integral to my personality.

I consider myself to be open minded. Second and relatedly, I have diverse
interests and influences, and I celebrate this diversity. Lastly, I engage deeply
with things that I come across.

I study western classical music and have played the piano since the age of five.
In 20xx, I completed the Grade 8 from Trinity College, London with a distinction,
and I'm pursuing the ATCL, a Performance Diploma awarded by the same

28
institute. Music has been a significant influence in shaping my work ethic, ideals,
and emotional and intellectual growth, and is something I want to continue to
pursue.

From a young age, reading has been a source of great pleasure, of new ideas and
perspectives, and has helped me be more articulate. I enjoy reading fiction -most
recently, I have been particularly taken by the authors AB, CD, EF and GH. Aside
from this, a significant portion of my reading is academic.

This brings me to something I am passionate about - theoretical physics and

mathematics. During my study, I've had the good fortune to travel, interact and,
more recently, collaborate with professors and graduate students from some of
the best institutes across the world and this has greatly augmented my
understanding and love for the subjects. Over time, I have become interested in
three topics - quantum field theory (QFT), general relativity, and string theory.
Last summer, I was an ABC Fellow at the XYZ Centre for Theoretical Sciences
with Dr. DEF. We worked on understanding recently proposed N=3
superconformal field theories by mapping them to a class of integrable systems.
While this project ultimately turned out to be only partially successful, it was an
extremely rich learning experience, particularly in learning how research is done.
Having completed a majority of the credit requirements for my MSc. early, I
returned to XYZ for my thesis. Here, I am working with Dr. DEF and Dr. GHI
(postdoctoral researcher) on formalising the Worldline approach to QFT, and
using it to address issues in standard QFT. Apart from potentially being a fresh
source of perspectives and techniques for QFT, it's been extremely rewarding
because it has involved learning a lot of string theory and revisiting older ideas
in a newer light.

I am also working with Prof. JKL on the relationship between certain soft
theorems (specifically, the sub-leading double soft theorem) and asymptotic
symmetries. Doing so successfully, would bring to a close one leg of the
pioneering program initiated by Prof. MNO, et. al. in 20xx, and I've been
particularly excited by this. It's been thrilling to be a part of a large group of

29
researchers across the world piecing together our current understanding of these
theorems over the past three years.

I would like to pursue a DPhil. in Theoretical Physics - I want to do research,

specifically in the field of QFT and strings. Between the Rudolf Peierls Centre and
the Mathematical Institute, Oxford has a strong and diverse string theory group,
and would be the ideal environment for me to pursue my research and mature
as a physicist. Given the opportunity, I would like to work in Prof. ABC's group
(on holography and transport phenomena) or with Prof. DEF (on string
phenomology) for my doctoral studies.

Alongside my research, I want to work in education. I enjoy teaching, and have

been fortunate to have ample opportunities to do so - I've taken numerous
lectures in college, helped teach a course, and have taught mathematics and
physics at school. Through school and college, I have been surrounded by people
who take education seriously and actively work towards addressing the many
questions it raises, and I've seen myself grow interested in the same. I'm excited
to see what form this interest takes in the future.

In conclusion, I would like to say that over time I have discovered for myself that
I am happiest and at my most productive when I'm learning, or when I'm using
what I've learnt in a meaningful and helpful way. If there is one overarching aim
or wish that I have for myself, it is that I continue to do so.

30
 ANNEXURE III

The academic statement of study [more information about this can be found in
Information Memorandum points 4(i) and 4(j)] is a new addition to the application
process. This statement is an opportunity to describe your interest in your chosen field,
highlighting how your experiences have led to the course you would like to pursue at
Oxford.

Below are the excerpts from an application for a D. Phil. in Biochemistry and an
application for an M.St. in Global and Imperial History to Oxford, respectively, that are
intended as examples of one approach to recounting your academic journey.

Course: Biochemistry (D. Phil.)

My undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences allowed me to explore the full
spectrum of life from bacteria to blue whales, studying life at the microscopic
scale and placing it in the context of populations and ecosystems. I am most
fascinated by life at the cellular and molecular scale, and my module choices of
Bacterial Physiology and Advanced Bacterial and Eukaryotic Cellular Biology
reflect this. The Bacterial Physiology module introduced me to the immense
diversity, functional variability and adaptability of bacteria, emphasising
overarching principles of how bacteria sense and respond to changes in their
environment while the Advanced Bacterial and Eukaryotic Cellular Biology
module showed me the fascinating complexity of life at the cellular level,
focusing on the organization and control of cells with a particular focus on
imaging. For graduate study, I have discovered that I am most interested in
microbiology, particularly the intersection between understanding cellular
processes and their application to industry.

My work with ABC, as well as my experience with literature review through my

tutored dissertation and wet lab projects in my course have shown me that I enjoy
conducting research. Thus, I would like to undertake a DPhil to gain the skills
necessary to complete a complex and novel project of my own. Areas I hope to
explore include learning about proteins and protein engineering in bacteria and
bacterial membranes, as well as Bioimaging which combines my passion for art

31
with the clarity provided by quantitative approaches. As such, I am particularly
excited by the prospect of access to the training and facilities at the Micron
Advanced Bioimaging Unit.

Working on ABC project highlighted how much there is to know about protein
expression in bacterial membranes as well as my enthusiasm to learn more about
the topic. I found the work done by Prof DEF’s lab fascinating, as it is studying
transport across bacterial membranes - especially the work with the Type IX
secretion system in Bacteroidetes bacteria and the functioning of adhesins in
gliding motility. I was first introduced to the idea of directionality at the cellular
level through writing my tutored dissertation, where I learned about the origin
and maintenance of axiality in the growth and development of plant shapes. I
would like to understand this concept in the context of gliding motility,
investigating the basis of the direction of adhesin movement across helical tracks,
using live cell imaging and fluorescent tagging.

Course: Global and Imperial History (M.St.)

My interest in the history of German civilians’ internment in India during the
Second World War stems from a chance discovery. It was while reading
Anuradha Bhattacharjee’s book on Polish refugees in wartime India that I
began to ponder the question of those who were not sheltered but detained in
the subcontinent. My preliminary research on this theme revealed that from
1939 to 1945, all German civilians residing in India (not just men of military
age), whether protestant missionaries, or mountaineers, or employees of
multinational corporations, experienced some form of internment by virtue of
their status as ‘enemy aliens’. As I prepared to write an article on this
understudied theme for the History Society of my college, I realized the
inadequacy of the nation-state as a spatio-political level of analysis to
disentangle ‘a twentieth century mass global phenomenon’ as complex as
civilian internment during a ‘total war’ that involved multi-ethnic and
polymorphous empires as belligerents.
Civilian internment involved classification—legal and social, displacement of
large numbers of people, and their protracted incarceration in foreign
territories. By focusing on the Indian subcontinent—neither a home front nor

32
a war zone—I seek to recalibrate the largely Eurocentric discourse on the
Second World War. My approach is aimed at de-militarizing and de-
masculinizing histories of war in the context of modern South Asia which
remain enmeshed in discourses surrounding military technology or
nationalism, save for a few exceptions. I am also interested in interrogating
the ‘globalizing’ tendencies of global conflicts in general and of internment in
particular.
To this end, I have also worked on the reconfiguration of existing military-
civilian relationships due to the advent of American soldiers who functioned
as wartime cultural conduits in Calcutta (1942-46), as part of a short-term
research internship. For me, engaging with the theme of civilian
encampments in wartime India implies writing local histories of a global war.
The sites of these camps were scarcely akin to conventional prisons. Camp
tectonics depended as much on political propaganda and war-rumours as
they did on interactions with the local populace and strategies of everyday
resistance. In a way, these were what Foucault called heterotopias—
mimicking yet mocking the order outside—featuring both disciplining and
inversions.
What I find interesting about these camps is that they are given new leases of
life during international conflicts. Almost all the camps that had been
constructed to intern foreigners in the subcontinent during the First World
War were reopened during the Second, which underscores their palimpsest-
like nature and enduring relevance for the imperial war-machine. The legal
bulwark of the British Raj against ‘enemy aliens’ in wartime India finds a
strange resonance in the postcolonial politics of citizenship. Having
interviewed partition-survivors for an oral history archival project, I have
increasingly come to appreciate the commonality of experiences—of turmoil,
hopelessness, forced mobility, and fractured positionalities—that are often
shared by displaced communities and families detained on foreign soil,
during or in the aftermath of conflict.
Oral history accounts are as fallible as any other historical source. Matthew
Johnson has shown how New Zealand POWs used their post-captivity
accounts to distance themselves from the perceived shame of coerced
collaboration with enemy powers. Yet, these constitute an important

33
springboard for understanding the dynamics of wartime internment, the
totality of which cannot be effectively captured by official records alone. I
believe that an M.St. in Global and Imperial History at Oxford will equip me
with the necessary skills and methodological clarity to conceptualise my
doctoral research on both civilian and military aspects of foreigners’
internment in India during the Second World War.
The history of German civilians’ internment in India (1939-45) can offer critical
and novel insights regarding the political debilitation of the British Raj
throughout the 1940s. The imperial legislation underwriting such internment
was not only governed by the security concerns about possible espionage but
was also mediated by a racialized fear of the ‘enemy’—a monolithic category
defined by citizenship that heralded ominous repercussions for national
minorities such as German-speaking Jews, who could not escape the fate of
being interned. Keeping this in mind, I aim to unpack the nuances of identity
formation within the campsites as well.
Three questions predominantly frame my research—first, what can the
practice of interning German civilians in wartime India tell us about the
nature of the late colonial state as a pre-eminent node of the multinational
British Empire? Second, what were the politico-economic and cultural
ramifications of the presence of interned German civilians on Indian
communities in the vicinity of the encampments? And third, what can the
idiosyncrasies of decision-making at the level of campsites tell us about
decolonization as an extended process that was initiated well before 1946-47
through localized transfers of power?

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