Friends and patrons of the IU India Studies Program were given a unique opportunity to hear senior representatives of the United Nations as part of the India Studies 2003-2004 lecture series. In November, His Excellency Ambassador Vijay Nambiar, Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations, delivered a guest lecture titled “A Permanent Seat on the Security Council at the United Nations: India’s Case.” The well-attended talk was co-sponsored by the Office of the Chancellor and the College of Arts and Sciences, and was followed by a dinner for India Studies supporters hosted by Chancellor Sharon Stephens Brehm.

In March, a near-capacity crowd heard Shashi Tharoor, Undersecretary General of the United Nations for Communications and Public Information, give a talk titled “Democracy and Diversity in Today’s India.” In addition to being a long-time UN official whose other duties have included oversight of the organization’s peacekeeping operations in the former Yugoslavia, Tharoor is an award-winning author of fiction and non-fiction. He signed copies of his latest book, Nehru: The Invention of India, following his lecture. The talk was co-sponsored by the Indiana University Union Board, the Department of English, and the Department of Comparative Literature.

The fall semester lectures opened in October with a talk by General V. P. Malik, former Chief of Staff of the Indian Army and Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee of India, titled “India’s National Security Challenges.” Malik’s standing-room-only Bloomington lecture was co-sponsored by the Military Science Department, the Political Science Department, and the Office of International Programs. The general also spoke to the Indian community of Terre Haute at a dinner attended by more than 120 people, on the topic of “The Kargil War.” That lecture was co-sponsored by the Terre Haute Chapter of the Friends of India Studies.

The fall schedule included a concert of classical Indian music featuring Ken Zuckerman on sarod, accompanied by Anindo Chatterjee on tabla. The well-attended concert was co-sponsored by the IU School of Music, the Center for the Performing Arts of India at the University of Pittsburgh, and the Indian Council for Cultural Relations.

The final event of the fall was a public lecture by Praveen Swami, special correspondent for Frontline magazine, based in New Delhi, who spoke on “The Media, the Military, and the Mujaheddin: Reporting the Conflict in Jammu and Kashmir.” Swami’s lecture was co-sponsored by the IU School of Journalism and Office of International Programs.
The spring semester began with a lecture by Wajahat Habibullah, Secretary to the Government of India in the Department of Consumer Affairs and currently a Senior Jennings Randolph Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, DC. His lecture was titled “Conflict Resolution: Military-Insurgent Confrontation at Kashmir’s Premier Religious Shrine, 1993.”

In March, Robert L. Hardgrave, Jr. presented the Hrishikesh and Sailabala Bhattacharya Memorial Lecture, titled “A Portrait of the Hindus: Balthazar Solvyns and the European Image of India 1760-1824.” Hardgrave is the Louann and Larry Temple Centennial Professor Emeritus in the Humanities, Departments of Government and Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. The Hrishikesh and Sailabala Bhattacharya Memorial Lecture is endowed by Rabi Bhattacharya, retired IU professor of mathematics, in honor of his parents.

“Chaos Theory and Late Timurid Politics: Legitimacy and Opportunity in Late Fifteenth-Century Central Asia” was the subject of an April lecture by Stephen Dale, Professor of Islamic History at Ohio State University. Dale’s talk was co-sponsored by the Department of Central Eurasian Studies and the Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center.

Also in April, Indivar Kamtekar, Associate Professor of Modern History at Jawaharlal Nehru University in India, presented a lecture titled “Looking Beyond Flags: The 1940s in India.” The IU Department of History co-sponsored.

The final event of the academic year featured T. N. Srinivasan, the Samuel C. Park, Jr. Professor of Economics at Yale University. Srinivasan presented the Savitaben Kantilal Trivedi Memorial Lecture, titled “The Second Generation of India’s Economic Reforms: Problems and Prospects.” The talk was co-sponsored by the IU Department of Economics. Srinivasan’s most recent book, Reintegrating India with the World Economy, was published by the Institute for International Economics in 2003. The Savitaben Kantilal Trivedi Memorial Lecture is made possible by a donation to India Studies from Professor Pravin Trivedi of the IU Department of Economics and his brother, Jagdish Trivedi, a Hong Kong businessman, in honor of their mother.

On May 19th, the India Studies Program sponsored a roundtable discussion of the recent national elections in India. The event was titled "Explaining the Indian Election Outcome: Three Perspectives," and was held in the Hoosier Room of the Indiana Memorial Union before a standing-room-only audience. The discussion was moderated by Dr. Sumit Ganguly, Rabindranath Tagore Chair of Indian Cultures and Civilizations and director of the IU India Studies Program. Panelists included: Dr. Elliot Sperling, associate professor of Central Eurasian Studies at IU, Dr. Arvind Verma, associate professor of Criminal Justice at IU, and Dr. Milind Thakar, assistant professor of International Relations at the University of Indianapolis.