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Arundhat Virmani was born in New Delhi, on 26 June 1957. After her schooling in Convent of Jesus and Mary, New Delhi , and Lady Irwin School, she did her graduation in history from Indraprastha College. As a student of Delhi University, she obtained a French fellowship in 1981 to prepare her Ph. D. thesis in French history at the Sorbonne in Paris. Under the supervision of Maurice Agulhon, one of the leading French historians at the Sorbonne, and then at the Collège de France, she studied the politicization of French rural society after the Restoration and before the institution of male universal suffrage under the Second Republic in 1848. She did her archival research in the department of Ain, a frontier area not far from Calvinist Switzerland and the huge French city of Lyons, one of the main centers of the working class movement. Ain was on the contrary a more conservative area, known for its Catholic revival under the holy figure of the Curé d'Ars, Jean-Marie Vianey. She defended her thesis in September 1984.

Back in Delhi, she taught in Jesus and Mary college before being recruited in Delhi University. She was for some time the head of the History section of the School of Correspondence Courses, where she participated in adult education and Long-Distance teaching. Then Reader in European History at the History Department, she taught modern French and European History. For many years, she learned Odissi dance from Madhavi Mudgal, the renowned Indian dancer.

In 1991, she married Jean Boutier, a French historian, and moved to France. "Maitre de conférences" invited at the University of Bordeaux (1992), she shifted to Marseille where she taught in different academic institutions (Université Paul Cézanne, Euromed-Marseille Business School, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciencs Sociales...). Since then, her research were focused on the colonial period in India, especially the 20th Century; she is also an analyst of the current transformations of Indian society.

She has published several books and many papers in collective works and scientific journals (in England , France and Italy ). She has lectured on colonial Indian history in different universities and academic institutions (Paris, London, Berlin, Bologna, Florence , New Delhi, ...). She is currently a research fellow at the Centre Norbert Elias in Marseille.

Since 2000, she has been engaged in consultancy work, specializing in Indo-French intercultural training. She has worked for many firms and business clubs (Eurocopter, DCNS, SAIPEM, CREAWAL, Vetoquinol...). She is a recognized expert for the "Association pour le Progrès du Management". She is presently interested in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) from an Indian perspective. She has made an original contribution to the field by developing a reflection using Hindu philosophical concepts.