BENGALURU: Manhar Bansal, a final-year BA LLB (Hons) student from the Bengaluru-based National Law School of India University (NLSIU), is among the six Rhodes Scholar-elect from India for 2026. With this, Bansal has joined the hallowed ranks in NLSIU with 25 other scholars who received the prestigious academic honours in previous years.

Bansal will head to the University of Oxford in October 2026 to join more than 100 scholars from around the world to undertake fully funded post-graduate studies. At Oxford, he intends to pursue MSt in Comparative Literature and Critical Translation. 

“I think the Rhodes Scholarship is a wonderful opportunity allowing me to develop my academic and intellectual interests. NLS has been an increasingly interdisciplinary university and my degree is not just in law but also the social sciences and humanities,” Bansal said.

“From the first year, as I sat in classrooms, I understood the expanse of possibilities which humanities offers; it allows you to contemplate the human condition, in all its terror and beauty, and that’s what draws me to it.”

His academic writings has been published in multiple venues and has received recognition by the Society for Humanistic Anthropology and the South Asian Studies Association of Australia.

At NLSIU, he was the chief editor of a student journal, headed a student-led academic support programme and co-convened a theory reading group. He aspires to a public-facing academic career with the aim of introducing humanistic education to young people. 

Last year, NLSIU’s Vibha Swaminathan bagged the scholarship.