[1][2] The son of a professor of psychology, Kanji was born in Patna, India in 1938.
He obtained a bachelor's degree in mathematics and a master in statistics from Patna University.
In 1966 he moved to the Sheffield College of Technology and remained there when it merged with other institutions to become Sheffield City Polytechnic in 1969 and Sheffield Hallam University in 1992, eventually being promoted to professor and serving as head of the Department of Applied Statistics.
[3][4] In 1974 he founded a departmental journal called the Bulletin in Applied Statistics (BIAS), which later became the Journal of Applied Statistics, and remained editor until the end of 2007.
[1][2] He retired from Sheffield Hallam University in 2001 to concentrate on his own company offering consultancy and training.