Application Packet

November 1, 2012

Dear Colleague:

Thank you for your interest in "India's Past and the Making of the Present," a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute for College and University Faculty sponsored by the Community College Humanities Association. This letter from the project directors will set out the general scope and aims of our project, and appended to the letter you will find an Application Packet, consisting of NEH general "Application Information and Instructions" and a link to the NEH Application Cover Sheet. Please note that this Application Cover Sheet must be filled out online at the NEH web address https://securegrants.neh.gov/education/participants/, submitted electronically, and then printed out and submitted in hard copy to us, with your full application, as explained below.

India is a country with a rich cultural tradition that is very much a part of the world’s humanities heritage. Materials related to India appear throughout world history, world literature, art history, comparative religion and other survey courses widely taught in American colleges and universities. In this institute we will introduce our participants to the most current scholarly perspectives on India so that they can broaden and deepen their knowledge and understanding of Indian history and culture and can enrich their teaching, particularly in humanities survey courses. Our institute will also provide a solid foundation of scholarship for faculty interested in designing and teaching courses dealing with South Asia.

Four areas of inter-connected disciplinary focus for our institute will provide participants with the most up-to-date scholarship in those fields:

The Indus Valley Civilization and the Aryan Question

The Classical Period and the Development of Major Religions

Mughal India and the Attempt at Socio-Religious Syncretism

The Raj, Independence, and the Making of Modern India

More specifically, the larger theme that defines our proposed study of India is the powerful mix of the present and past in contemporary India’s encounter with and understanding of its cultural legacy. Given the thousands of years of Indian history, it should come as no surprise that the past has been a powerful factor in forging the cultural traditions of India. In recent years, a whole new avenue of historical inquiry has emerged that seeks to uncover how generations, ethnic and religious groups, and differing communities remember a historical event and create distinct interpretations of history. This past/present dynamic can be seen not only in reference to specific historical events/eras/figures but also in other humanities fields such as literature, art and architecture, where fresh perspectives are re-shaping previously established forms of study. We will make this dynamic new scholarship accessible to our participants so that they can incorporate this material into their humanities courses.

In general, we have designed the institute to cover our themes while moving chronologically through Indian history from the past (Indus Valley civilization) to the present (post-Partition India). We believe that this is the way that most teachers will encounter Indian history and culture while teaching survey courses. We also believe that since our organizing theme is the idea of the interplay of past and present in Indian history and culture, it makes sense to organize our study historically. While we have adopted the generally-accepted periodization of Indian history into ancient, Mughal, colonial, and post-Partition periods, the weekly schedule sometimes departs from strict chronology to accommodate our visiting scholars.

The institute is designed to be an intense, interdisciplinary engagement with Indian history and culture, providing participants with a rich interplay of resources, seminars, and site visits. Even though scholars will prepare formal presentations, the actual sessions will permit a variety of teaching styles to engage the participants in the study of our material, with all project meetings and readings being in English. Meetings will be conducted by institute scholars from 9:00 am to 12:00 noon or from 2:00 to 5:00 pm. Working lunches will allow participants frequently to engage in informal discussion with the visiting scholars. Many mornings or afternoons are devoted to site visits or reading, reflection, and informal discussion. Evenings are normally free, but a few evening activities may be scheduled. The project directors will be available throughout the institute to consult with participants about their work.

Prior to the start of the institute, participants will read Vibha Dehejia’s, Indian Art (1997) for an overview of the sub-continent’s history and an introduction to the historical and cultural significance of the art and architecture that the participants will see during the institute. Participants will also read Tarun Tejpal’s The Story of My Assassins (2009) and Sudeep Chakravarti’s The Avenue of Kings (2010). Both are powerful fictional portrayals of social consciousness and disillusionment in present day India.

STRUCTURE AND CONTENT

In the first week, we will introduce the themes of the institute and begin to explore the early history of India and how interpretations of that past have become controversial in modern India. Shereen Ratnagar, retired professor of archaeology and ancient history at Jawaharlal Nehru University, will introduce the Indus Valley civilization, describing and offering the most current interpretation of the artifacts and objects that have been found at various archeological sites. She will also examine the reasons for the Ganges migration of the Aryans and the ensuing emergence of cities and kingdoms in the Gangetic plain (800-400 BCE) while discussing why these early societies facilitated the establishment of an enduring culture which is still very much reflected in India today. Dr. Ehnbom, our senior scholar, will provide an overview of the art and architecture of India, pointing out some recurrent characteristics of the art of ancient India, such as the floral motifs of early architecture, and explaining how that art informed later artistry of almost all religions of India, thus creating a sense of cultural integration. To permit an expanded exploration of India’s art, Dr. Ehnbom and Dr. Ratnagar will take the participants to the National Museum in New Delhi where they will lecture to the participants on some of the museum’s key exhibits, such as the Indus Valley civilization archeology finds and sculptures of Gupta period iconography.

In this first week, Dr. Ehnbom will also acquaint participants with the city of Delhi by leading a tour of sites and areas that are of cultural importance. Participants will visit the Red Fort (built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan when he moved his capital from Agra to Delhi in 1638 CE), the Chandni Chowk (an old-style market in Old Delhi built within the walled city of what was originally Shahjahanabad--the city developed by Shahjahan to mark Delhi as his new capital), Connaught Place (the central market and business hub named after the Duke of Connaught). These tours will allow participants to see first-hand a flourishing modernity that exists alongside the reminders of the past. This will be followed by lunch at Karim’s, a restaurant serving Mughalai food. Romila Thapar, one of India’s foremost historians, will discuss the challenges of India’s past and the role that history has played in shaping the political and cultural dialogue of contemporary India. Shashi Tharoor, former UN under-secretary general for communications and public information, will discuss the challenges of the religio-ethnic diversity of modern India, and how India must look beyond its past, especially in its effort to foster the current climate of socio-economic progress.

In the institute’s second week, moving to classical India and the development of fixed religious faiths, Meena Nayak will examine the Krishna mythos in the Mahabharata, an epic which dates to the period after the Ganges migration, noting how Krishna’s myths and narratives were adoptions from tribal traditions. These infusions created the grounds for a system of belief that was so powerful that it not only initiated a new unified religion that has endured until today, but it also served to eclipse the numerous heterodox sects that were destroying the prevalent Vedic/Aryan system of belief. In particular, Professor Nayak will shed light on the ethical traditions that the Mahabharata established, explaining how these became the very tenets on which current Hindu society is based. She will also lead a trip to the nearby town of Kurukshetra, which is both the location of the Mahabharata battlefield and the site where Krishna recited the Bhagavad Gita. Dr. Ehnbom will provide further insight into the themes of Krishna’s portrayal in the Mahabharata by discussing Krishna in the visual arts and the accompanying political culture his divinity evoked.

Swami Agnivesh, a Vedic scholar, will investigate the idea of how in the classical period diverse religions and conflicting philosophies had to accommodate each other to create a syncretic Indian culture and how in today’s India this very culture has become politicized under the impact of a renewed Hindu nationalism. He will also explain how age-old religious practices are still a part of daily life and these traditions not only connect Indians to their history but also reaffirm the validity of their present. To provide a first-hand experience of this connection and reaffirmation, Dan Ehnbom and Meena Nayak will accompany the participants to visit the Birla temple, Nizamuddin dargah (tomb), Bangla Sahib gurudwara, and Sacred Heart cathedral in New Delhi. These four places of worship located within just a few miles of one another are visited everyday by Indians of all faith, demonstrating how religious faiths in India have been and remain fluid and assimilative. Conversely, these same places, when triggered by communal politics, can become instantaneous flashpoints of violence because centuries of religious sectarianism also lies within them.
Shyam Benegal, one of India’s most honored film directors, will address the interplay between past and present by discussing how India’s “new cinema” grapples with the idea of depicting the past in modern cinema. Benegal will talk about how religious tradition and communal cultures have become a metaphor for film-makers and how the Indian “new cinema” incorporates these ideas by employing avant-garde techniques of modernism and postmodernism. Institute participants will view Benegal’s film, Samar (1999), which won the National Film Award for Best film. This movie is a narrative of caste and religious prejudices that have existed in Indian society from the earliest of times and are still wide-spread today. The film shows how one tiny offense committed by an untouchable can evoke deep-rooted hatred amongst the upper class Brahmins and thrust the community into a cycle of violence.

We will finish the second week with a trip to Varanasi, one of the world’s oldest cities and a site considered holy by Hindus, Buddhists and Jains, and nearby Sarnath (site of Buddha’s first sermon). Participants will be able to see first-hand elements of India’s religious complexity because, here, not only are ancient Vedic Hindu practices still part of daily life, but also they exist side-by-side with the sectarian worship of Jainism and the relics of Buddhism’s origins. These two sites display all the complicated tensions and concord of modern India--a microcosm of India’s past and present.

The third week will be a study of the impact of Islam on the sub-continent. We will focus on how, while the initial encounter between India and Islam involved political dominion, sectarian violence, and consolidation of a Muslim kingdom, the later establishment of the Mughal Empire (1526-1707) produced elements of a cultural and political synthesis. In this regard, Dr. Ehnbom will focus on the fusion of Islamic and South Asian artistic patterns to show how the unifying force of Mughal emperors, like Akbar, furthered an Indian tradition of integration and tolerance.

Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer, chairman of the Centre for the Study of Society and Secularism, Mumbai, will examine more closely the nature of the complicated and intertwined relationship that developed between Hinduism and Islam, noting how, despite the contentions between them, Islam influenced the development of Hinduism (and vice versa) and how both religions reached an accommodation that some followers renounced in the twentieth century, which has led to more dissension in current India.

Sunil Kumar, professor of history at Delhi University and scholar of the Sultanate era, will speak about the encounter between India and Islam during the Delhi sultanate (1206-1526). In particular, he will talk about the motives of the first Muslim invaders, explaining how it is now believed that the invasions were not religiously-driven but simply expansionist in nature. He will also return to our discussion of how India perceives the present in terms of the past and examine the resentment that the Hindus have harbored for centuries about the violent nature of Islam’s advent in their country. Dr. Kumar will also lead participants to selected places in and around present-day Delhi. One of the sites he will show is Tughluqabad, an abandoned fort in Delhi, dating to the early fourteenth century. He will also take participants to the Qutb Minar, completed in 1192 CE. This is not only the tallest minaret in India, but it also exemplifies the best qualities of Indo-Islamic architecture. Dr. Kumar will illustrate how the meaning of these places has transformed over time as a result of the complex interplay of forces such as demographic change, political association and religious shifts.

Ebba Koch, one of the world’s leading experts on the Taj Mahal, will join our institute for an overview of Mughal architecture and specifically the Taj Mahal. She will begin by taking the participants to Humayun’s tomb in Delhi, a mausoleum commissioned by Humayun’s wife, Hamida Bano Begum (1562 CE), and often considered to be the “mini Taj Mahal” because of the architectural similarity between the two monuments. Her talk will also provide background for the weekend trip to the Taj Mahal, the mausoleum commissioned by Emperor Shah Jahan for his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, (built 1632-48) and to Fatehpur Sikri--the political capital of the Mughal Empire under Akbar (1571-85). She will also conduct a visit to the Agra Fort, the walled city captured by the Mughals from Sultan Ibrahim Lodi after the first battle of Panipat in 1526 CE, which marked the beginning of the Mughal Empire. In visiting these sites, Dr. Koch will endeavor to show how the interpretation of these places has changed over time, much as what Sunil Kumar will do in his sessions devoted to sites in Delhi.

In the fourth and final week, in keeping with our institute’s emphasis on India in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, we will focus on the British Raj, India’s independence, and the making of modern India. David Campion, an expert on British colonialism, will start the week with a visit to Coronation Park in Delhi, where he will give a site lecture on the background and development of British Raj and its impact on the culture and society of India. The after-effects of the Raj are not only evident in the events/history of post-colonial India, but they have also become a part of the Indian psyche, impacting everything from politics to religion. Mushirul Hasan, director general of the National Archives of India, will talk about Gandhi and Nehru’s perspectives on colonialism in India and their role in India’s Independence and how these events led to the creation of modern India. Tushar Gandhi, one of Mahatma Gandhi’s great-grandsons, on a site visit to the Raj Ghat, the memorial to Gandhi, and the Gandhi Museum, will touch upon the sensitivity that Indians still feel about the British Raj and the partition between India and Pakistan. During these visits, he will talk about Gandhi’s advice to the nation about dealing with the scars of colonialism, his heartbreak at the Partition, and his vision for the future of independent India. Ironically, the present that emerged in India is quite contrary to Gandhi’s dream, and this fact in itself has become a matter of political debate. The participants will also visit the Nehru museum and the National Gallery of Modern Art which houses a collection of over seventeen thousand works dating from 1857 to the present.

A reoccurring feature of Indian life since the 1950s has been communal violence, i.e., violence carried out between sectarian religious and social groups, often triggered by politics that invoke the history of separatism and fueled by fringe movements that draw upon cultural sensitivities. Sudeep Charavarty, author and expert on anti-establishment movements in India, will bring the institute into the heart of this issue by discussing the Naxalite movement and the communalism that has dictated much of India’s political agenda since independence. He will also talk about the other sources of tension in India today, such as disenchantment with the establishment, systemic corruption and antipathy between India and Pakistan. M.J. Akbar, editorial director of India Today, will share with the participants his insights on the India-Pakistan dynamic and its impact on the socio-political conditions in both countries. These themes also
take expression in Indian fiction, and Karthika V. K., publisher and editor-in-chief at Harper Collins, India, will conclude the Institute’s sessions by presenting a talk on the changing face of modern Indian fiction. She will discuss how the most recent literature has increasingly turned to issues of social awareness and realism, often exposing the dark under-side of Indian politics and society.