To mark its first full year, the Brown-India Initiative has implemented a series of seminars and lectures by distinguished scholars and public figures that focus on four major topics within the realm of contemporary India. Leaders of the four themes - pluralism and diversities, economic change and economic inequalities, the rise of cities in India and democracy - will host their own activities, including lectures, workshops and visiting scholars, to promote the cultural exchange between Brown and India, said Ashutosh Varshney, the initiative's director.
For pluralism and diversities, for instance, Varshney and Professor of Sociology and International Studies Patrick Heller have organized a week-long series of talks by leading Bollywood scholar Rachel Dwyer, professor of Indian cultures and cinema at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.
The initiative has also installed a broader seminar series called Brown-India Seminar that will meet almost every Friday afternoon for the semester. The seminar, which Varshney is directing, is open to the public.
"That's the central seminar that cuts across the four themes," Varshney said.
The novelist Rana Dasgupta will speak about his new book in today's seminar.
Since its initial endowment of $6 million last spring, the initiative has raised another $4.5 million from private donors and alums within the University community. Sangita and Sajjan Jindal, chairman of India's third largest steel-producing company, have endowed a series of O.P. Jindal Distinguished Lectures to take place over the upcoming months. Kaushik Basu, chief economist of the World Bank and a professor at Cornell, will deliver the inaugural O.P. Jindal Lecture on Nov. 9. The talk will be the first of a two-part series entitled "Two Decades of Economic Reform."
In the spring, three major scholars from India will visit Brown to continue work about citizenship and the delivery of public services in Indian cities, Varshney said. The first focus will be the city of Bangalore, where collaborative research has already begun. One of the initiative's main components is the continuation of research projects with current partners, including the nonprofit Janaagraha and the Center for Public Policy in Bangalore and the Center for Policy Research and the National Council of Applied Economic Research in Delhi, according to the initiative's website.
Upon the arrival of visiting scholars in the spring, collaborators from Brown and India will compile research materials that are already underway. One of the central research projects addresses the differences between India's urban and rural voting patterns. After completing their analysis of already existing data, Varshney and the visiting scholars will write a paper together at Brown, Varshney said.
"We wish to focus on two kinds of things," Varshney said. The first is research and "pedagogical matters," and the second is the public sphere, which includes television, newspapers and policy advice, he said. Varshney recently traveled to Washington to brief the U.S. government and is currently advising the World Bank, "and such efforts will continue," he said. "We not only want to address the issues that concern the University but also address the issues that concern larger policy and (the) public sphere in general."
The initiative's collaboration will reach across multiple departments at Brown, including a conference in the Modern Culture and Media department and a visit with two poets from India that the Literary Arts program will help coordinate.
"All our guests are equally precious for us," Varshney said of the numerous visiting scholars who will make an appearance at Brown this year, including Barkha Dutt, one of India's leading television journalists and the University's inaugural Meera and Vikram Gandhi fellow.
"That fellowship purpose is to have a major journalist scholar or policy maker in residence to undertake a substantial project," Varshney said. Meera and Vikram Gandhi are funding the fellowships for a period of five years, according to the initiative's website.
Media staff from the Watson Institute for International Studies will be recording or webcasting 90 percent of the events for the Initiative, and these will be displayed on the website, said Stephanie Abbott-Pandey, the program manager.
The initiative will announce the opening of undergraduate and graduate programs in the coming weeks. "The initiative will seek active involvement from the student body," Varshney said. Student internships and research in and about India will be the focus of the student programs.
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