Prof. Bhikhu Parekh became Deputy Chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality in 1986; Vice-Chancellor of the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda in 1981, where he created two new faculties of Management and the Performing Arts; Professor of Political Theory at the University of Hull in 1982; Visiting Professor at the University of British Columbia, Concordia University and McGill University.

He is a former member of the Rampton and Swann Committees; Chairman of the British Assoc. for south Asia Studies; member of the Governing Council of the Policy Studies Institute. He is Vice President of the U. K. Council for Overseas Affairs; Trustees of the Runnymede Trust and Member of the Governing Council of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. He did his doctoral research at the London School of Economics; has written on Karl Marx, Jeremy Bentham, Hannah Arendt, Mahatma Gandhi, British Colonialism in India and race and racism. He appears frequently on television and radio programmes.

Prof. Parekh was born in India in 1935. He is married with three sons.