The following event has been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances.
The nation-building process in India during the Jawaharlal Nehru years will be the top issue at an upcoming workshop at York University.
‘The Search for India’: Looking back at Jawaharlal Nehru will also look at issues of ethnicity, cultural nationalism, nationalism and nationalities, economic growth and social equity, and the challenges of foreign policy.
The discussion will take place Monday, Feb. 23, from 9:30am to 4pm at the Schulich School of Business’s Private Dining Room. Everyone is welcome.
Nehru (1889-1964) was one of the foremost leaders of India’s struggle for independence and became the first prime minister of independent India in 1947. Nehru’s India was known for its internationalism, non-alignment, secularism, a drive for scientific education and state-led economic development. Today, 125 years since his birth, and in an India of the 21st century, the relevance of many of these ideas are being debated.
History Professor Suranjan Das, vice-chancellor of the University of Calcutta, will give the workshop keynote address on Jawaharlal Nehru and Nation-Building in India: Towards a Reappraisal at 9:45am.
His many publications include: Communal Riots in Bengal 1905-1947 (Oxford University Press, 1991 and 1993); Kashmir and Sindh: Ethnicity, Nation-Building and Regional Politics in South Asia (2001); and The Food Movement of 1959: Documenting a Turning Point in the History of West Bengal, jointly with Premangsu Kumar Bandyopadhyay (2004).
The two panels, Building the Indian Nation and Nehru’s India and the World, will include academics from the University of Calcutta, McGill University and York University.
Full details are available on the York Centre for Asian Research website or on the Search for India Facebook page.
This workshop is organized by Adrian Shubert of the Department of History and Ananya Mukherjee-Reed of the Department of Political Science, both in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, with the support of the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute and the York Centre for Asian Research.
For more information, email ycar@yorku.ca.