Beginning his career as a lecturer in English literature, Nandy developed greater interests in race relations and was the first director of the Runnymede Trust.
[2] In 1964, he was appointed as a lecturer, and from 1964 to 1967 chaired the Leicester Campaign for Racial Equality and also took part in sit-ins at the Admiral Nelson pub, which at that time had a colour bar.
[3] In 1966 and 1967, he was Director of the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination Summer Projects; he also joined the Information Panel of the National Committee for Commonwealth Immigrants and served as Secretary of Equal Rights.
[5] After a brief break at Social and Community Planning Research from 1973 to 1974, he was recruited as a special consultant by the Home Office, to work on the Sex Discrimination Bill, before in 1976 helping to draft the Labour government’s Race Relations Act 1976.
He successfully briefed Liberal and Labour MPs and peers to redraft the government's proposed amendment to the Equal Pay Act 1970.
[7] Nandy always had a detailed personal interest in broadcasting as 'the way a society talks to itself', and he served as the chairman of the BBC's Immigrant Programme (1983–1988), and as a member of its General Council (1983–1990).