ABOUT

is a writer working at the intersection of anthropology and sociology, with a focus on minority life, migration, and institutions. A native of Kashmir, his work traces how communities live through conflict, sustain everyday worlds, and negotiate the conditions of staying.

He is the author of Those Who Stayed: The Sikhs of Kashmir, a study of a micro-minority shaped by memory, violence, and persistence. His essays and articles examine education, public policy, digital platforms, and shifting forms of social life, often bringing together lived experience and conceptual inquiry. His writing has appeared in platforms such as The Wire, Outlook India, The India Forum, Whale Road Review, and The Delacorte Review, among others.

Bali taught at the school level for over a decade before resigning to focus more fully on writing and research. He has worked across writing, research, and editorial practice, including serving as an associate editor at The UNIverse Journal and as a fiction reader for The Masters Review. His work moves between literary and analytical forms, building a sustained engagement with questions of belonging, institutional life, and the ethics of staying.