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CSSS organises a talk by Prof. Irfan Ahmad

CSSS organises a talk by Prof. Irfan Ahmad

Event From Date
Event End Date
Event Title
CSSS organises a talk by Prof. Irfan Ahmad
Event Details

Event From Date: 
Thursday, 28 March 2019
Event End Date: 
Thursday, 28 March 2019
Event Title: 
CSSS organises a talk by Prof. Irfan Ahmad
Event Details: 
Centre for the Study of Social Systems
School of Social Sciences
 
CSSS Colloquium
 
Irfan Ahmad
 
 (Senior Fellow, Max Planck Institute, Germany)
 
Will be presenting a paper on
 
Indian Democracy and the Algebra of Warfare-Welfare: An Anthropological Outline
Date & Time:
 
March 28, 2019 (Thursday), 11 AM
 
Venue:
 
CSSS Committee Room (Room No: 13), SSS-II
 
Abstract:Electoral democracy is often viewed as politics of welfare. That warfare is also constitutive of democracy remains hushed. In this talk, I discuss how the mechanisms of warfare-welfare works in democracies in general. I elucidate this thesis by engaging with analyses of the 2014 Parliamentary elections over longue durée. Deploying an interdisciplinary – at times in-disciplinary too – approach, it aims to throw a pebble into the consensually calm and muddy water of democracy to craft an alternative and democratic idea of democracy. An intellectual inquiry such as this entails arriving at the truth and the true rather than describing mere reality
 
Bio:Irfan Ahmad is Senior Research Fellow at Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen, Germany. He has authored two monographs and co-edited two volumes, The Algebra of Warfare-Welfare: A Long View of India’s 2014 Election (Oxford University Press; with Pralay Kanungo) being the most recent. A political anthropologist, he has taught at universities in Australia and the Netherlands. He is on the editorial committees of journals such as Public Anthropologist. He was the founding co-editor of Journal of Religious and Political Practice.

A warm welcome to the modified and updated website of the Centre for East Asian Studies. The East Asian region has been at the forefront of several path-breaking changes since 1970s beginning with the redefining the development architecture with its State-led development model besides emerging as a major region in the global politics and a key hub of the sophisticated technologies. The Centre is one of the thirteen Centres of the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi that provides a holistic understanding of the region.

Initially, established as a Centre for Chinese and Japanese Studies, it subsequently grew to include Korean Studies as well. At present there are eight faculty members in the Centre. Several distinguished faculty who have now retired include the late Prof. Gargi Dutt, Prof. P.A.N. Murthy, Prof. G.P. Deshpande, Dr. Nranarayan Das, Prof. R.R. Krishnan and Prof. K.V. Kesavan. Besides, Dr. Madhu Bhalla served at the Centre in Chinese Studies Programme during 1994-2006. In addition, Ms. Kamlesh Jain and Dr. M. M. Kunju served the Centre as the Documentation Officers in Chinese and Japanese Studies respectively.

The academic curriculum covers both modern and contemporary facets of East Asia as each scholar specializes in an area of his/her interest in the region. The integrated course involves two semesters of classes at the M. Phil programme and a dissertation for the M. Phil and a thesis for Ph. D programme respectively. The central objective is to impart an interdisciplinary knowledge and understanding of history, foreign policy, government and politics, society and culture and political economy of the respective areas. Students can explore new and emerging themes such as East Asian regionalism, the evolving East Asian Community, the rise of China, resurgence of Japan and the prospects for reunification of the Korean peninsula. Additionally, the Centre lays great emphasis on the building of language skills. The background of scholars includes mostly from the social science disciplines; History, Political Science, Economics, Sociology, International Relations and language.

Several students of the centre have been recipients of prestigious research fellowships awarded by Japan Foundation, Mombusho (Ministry of Education, Government of Japan), Saburo Okita Memorial Fellowship, Nippon Foundation, Korea Foundation, Nehru Memorial Fellowship, and Fellowship from the Chinese and Taiwanese Governments. Besides, students from Japan receive fellowship from the Indian Council of Cultural Relations.