She is a feminist historian, utopian studies scholar, literary scholar, and researcher of girls' and women's education and writing. Bagchi is a member of the Human Rights Coalition of Utrecht, and has contributed to many events related to the city, feminism, diversity, human rights, and social dreaming.

She is considered an international authority on women's writing and the cultural history of women's education and on utopian studies, in transnational and transcultural perspective, with a focus on South Asia and Western Europe.

Previously she worked at the Institute of Development Studies, Kolkata at the University of Calcutta. She was educated at Jadavpur University, in Kolkata, St Hilda's College, Oxford, and at the Trinity College, Cambridge.