A survey course, major topics include conflict and accommodation in the Indo-Islamic world; change and continuity under colonial rule; competing ideas on the shape and substance of a new India; and the Partition of the subcontinent in 1947. This course is the first of a two-semester sequence: in the spring we will focus on Twentieth century South Asia.
This research colloquium will introduce advanced undergraduate students to the most pressing issues on the subject of education in India. We will discuss the priorities of the colonial state with regard to education; debates on the ideal national language and various language formulae immediately after independence; access to education along lines of caste and gender both in colonial and post-colonial India; perceptions of the humanities, social sciences, and engineering in higher education; rival emphases on primary versus higher education among those committed to planning; student protests; debates around the question of “academic freedom” and the role of education in the making of a new Indian citizenry.
This seminar will introduce advanced undergraduate and graduate students to writings on the relationship between education and citizenship in India. We will begin with tracing the relationship between education and the crafting of new demands in the colonial period, engage with the new literature on rights and duties of citizens that were first developed in the immediate aftermath of Partition, and conclude with discussions on citizenship and rights that have, following recent legislation, witnessed a resurgence.
India’s Partition and its far-reaching consequences may be productively studied from multiple perspectives. This course juxtaposes select novels, films, contemporary writings, reports, and some secondary sources to reflect on a few of the big questions thrown up by this event. These include the place of minorities in the subcontinent and the changing nature of center-state relations in the subcontinent after 1947.
The Partition of India has been the defining political misstep in twentieth century South Asia, confounding centuries of fluid identities in one sweeping irreversible decision. In this course we examine the texture of life in pre-Partition Punjab, the United Provinces (UP) and Bengal; detail the denouement in political negotiations that culminated in Partition; consider the violence that became constitutive of Partition; and mark the enormous consequences of the international boundary line separating India from Pakistan and later, Bangladesh.
This course considers a few of the key debates that have animated twentieth century South Asia: on the nature of anti-colonial nationalism; the shape of a free India; the founding principles of the states of India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka; the independence of Bangladesh; and the legacy of colonialism on democracy, development and militancy in these South Asian countries. We will also consider how recourse to certain interpretations of ‘history’ has influenced the crafting of policy and politics. Structured chronologically, the course begins with a study of colonialism in early twentieth century India and ends by considering the challenges of deepening democratization, and unequal development.
Corcoran Department of History
University of Virginia
Nau Hall - South Lawn
Charlottesville, VA 22904
Contact:
(434) 924-7147
(434) 924-7891
M-F 8am to 4:30pm
Department Contacts