More than eighty invited guests from the greater Washington area—India specialists in academia, diplomats, and business and cultural leaders—attended the event, which focused on the contributions of scholars to the understanding of India in the United States. The AIIS furthers this goal by supporting American scholarship on India.

In her welcoming remarks, Ambassador Rao praised the work of AIIS, placing it in the perspective of the Obama-Singh Education Initiative, and spoke of her own admiration for the Rudolphs’ lifetime contribution to Indian studies. This was followed by a brief introduction of the activities of the Institute by Rina Agarwala, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University, and by a warm appreciation of the Rudolphs’ work by Ashutosh Varshney, Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies at Brown University and Director of the Brown India Initiative. Philip Lutgendorf of the University of Iowa and current AIIS President then gave a short, illustrated lecture, “Chai Why?,” on the cultural history of tea drinking in twentieth-century India. The Ambassador then offered her own felicitation of the Rudolphs, and presented them with bouquets and a plaque honoring “their exceptional contribution to the study and understanding of India.”

In concluding the program, Mrs. Rama Deva, the Co-Chair of the AIIS Board of Advisors and a longtime friend of the Institute, announced a generous endowment gift that she and her husband, Arun, will make to support the documentation work of the AIIS Center for Art and Archeology in Gurgaon.

Following the formal program, guests enjoyed conversation and a lavish Indian buffet, while also taking in the Residence’s beautiful collection of historic and contemporary Indian art, including many pieces from Ambassador Rao’s personal collection.

The American Institute of Indian Studies is pleased to announce that its 2013 Joseph W. Elder Prize in the Indian Social Sciences has been awarded to Sunila Kale of the University of Washington for her book manuscript, Electrifying India: Regional Political Economies of Development. The book is under contract with Stanford University Press.

In the book, Professor Kale investigates why, more than six decades after independence, so much of India—especially rural India—is still not electrified or has intermittent and poor quality electricity delivery. Throughout the 20^th century, electrification was considered to be the primary vehicle of modernity and development, as well as its quintessential symbol.  In India, electricity was central to the conceptualization of Indian modernity by early nationalists and planners and huge sums were spent on electrification from then until now.  Yet despite all this, today nearly 400 million Indians have no access to electricity.

The author offers three in-depth case studies of the states of Maharashtra, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, telling the story of the history of electrification and electricity supply in each, as well as offering a careful analysis of the various interest groups in each state which stand to gain from cheap electricity provision, such as sugar cane farmers in the districts to the east of Mumbai. The author has spent considerable time trying to reconstruct, from often scanty records in the State Electricity Boards, the history of electrification, investments and policies in each of the three states. The author argues that ‘the axiomatic view of Indian federalism’ as highly centralized is overstated. In the case of electrification, and the history of the policies that have been pursued to bring it about, there has been enormous variation among states. The key factor has been whether and in what ways rural political coalitions have developed. The history of these politics and their effects on policy and practice regarding the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity in the long period of the interventionist state, up to the beginning of the 1990s, are shown to have had a profound influence upon the responses of different states in the present era of privatization.

Professor Kale argues that the earlier period of an advancing state apparatus conditioned in important ways the manner of the state’s retreat in the contemporary moment of market reforms. In those parts of the countryside that were successfully electrified in the decades after independence, the gains were due to neither nationalist idealism nor merely technocratic plans.  Instead, rural electrification occurred either when rural constituencies became politically influential in state governments, or when farmers emerged to demand a larger share of development resources.  Electrifying India explores the political and historical puzzle of uneven development in India’s vital electricity sector.

Sunila S. Kale is an assistant professor in the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington, where her teaching and research focus on Indian and South Asian politics and the political economy of development.  She obtained an undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago and a doctoral degree from the University of Texas, Austin.

The Joseph W. Elder Prize in the Indian Social Sciences honors Professor Joseph Elder, professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin, who served as AIIS president from 1986-1994 and as chair of the AIIS board of trustees from 1994-2002.

MAC-CAE students enjoy their visit to the Taj Mahal

A group of thirteen students from the Mid-Atlantic Consortium-Center for Academic Excellence led by Morgan State University, arrived in India in May 2012 for a seven-week program. The consortium consists of Historically Black Colleges and Universities in Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina. Most of the students—whose majors included biology, political science, and business administration, had never traveled abroad prior to this trip. The group was led by Professor Camellia Okpodu. Mark Nachtrieb, the Cultural Attache from the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi addressed the students at their orientation on May 20. After spending some time in New Delhi the students went to Jaipur where they studied Hindi and participated in their service learning projects.  Some of the students’ projects’ topics included “Biosensors and Global Air Quality” and “Microfinance and Rural Development in India.”

The three conferences will be:

The Long 1980s: Recovering a ‘Lost Decade’ is being organized by Sumathi Ramaswamy of Duke University, Karin Zitzewitz of Michigan State University, Rebecca Brown at Johns Hopkins University and Arvind Rajagopal of New York University and will be held in December 2012.

Regions and Regionalism in India: Past Cases and Present Opportunities is being organized by Benjamin Cohen of the University of Utah and Sumit Ganguly of Indiana University and will be held in the summer of 2013.

Political Imaginaries: Rethinking India’s Twentieth Century is being organized by Manu Goswami of New York University and Mrinalini Sinha of the University of Michigan and will be held in December 2013.

New Building at D-31 Defence Colony

At the end of December 2011, AIIS inaugurated its brand new building on its property at D-31 Defence Colony. The new building is conveniently located right by a new Delhi Metro stop!

Click here to see more photos of the inauguration of the new center at D-31 Defence Colony

Participating Junior Fellows, Projects, and Institutional Affiliations:

Emilia Bachrach (University of Texas, Austin, Asian Studies), “The Living Tradition of Hagiography in the Vallabh Sect of Contemporary Gujarat,” Gujarat University, Ahmedabad

Debjani Bhattacharyya (Emory, History), “Marginal Itineraries: Spatial History of Mid-Twentieth Century Calcutta,” Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata

Uday Chandra (Yale, Political Science), “Negotiating Leviathan: Rulers, Civilizers, and Subjects in Chotanagpur, 1854-2010,” Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata

Divya Cherian (Columbia University, History), “Caste and the Politics of Locality: Statecraft, Ideology, and Hierarchy in Early Modern Marwar, ca. 1500-1818,” Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Shefali Jha (University of Chicago, Anthropology), “Minority Politics and the Question of Identity: The Majlis-e-Ittehad ul Muslimeen of Hyderabad,” English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad

Andrew Liu (Columbia, History), “The Curious Institution of the Tea Garden: A Comparative Study of the Mobilization of Agrarian Labor in Northeast India and South China in the 19^th and 20^th Centuries,” Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata

Andrew McDowell (Harvard, Social Anthropology), “Propagating Prevention: Rural Rajasthani Perspectives on TB and TB Care,” University of Rajasthan, Jaipur

Atreyee Majumder (Yale, Anthropology), “Peri-Urban Citizenship: Political Aspiration and Conduct in Howrah, West Bengal,” Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata

Benjamin Siegel (Harvard, History), “Building Indian Agriculture: 1947-1971,” Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi.

Vikramaditya Thakur (Yale, Anthropology), “Unintended Mobility: Life Reconfigured after Forced Relocation in Western India,” University of Pune

Sundara Vadlamudi (University of Texas, Austin, History), “Mercantile Activities of Marakkayar Muslims in South India, Ca. 1800-1947,” Roja Muthiah Research Library, Chennai

Hollian Wint (New York University, History), “Indian Ocean Credit Networks and East African Society, ca. 1840-1914,” Gujarat University, Ahmedabad

Quotes from participants:

“A big round of thanks to everyone at AIIS for organising the JFC. I found it extremely helpful, because an event like this made me get out of the details I was embroiled in the archives and take a step back and organise my material, read and think through my material and go back and read my proposal and see how I might use the material to make the arguments I am making. It also revealed to me the gaps in the material I have collected. Finally, it was great to meet the other fellows and find out about their work and get their feedback. This event made me feel there is a community out there, since archive work can be very lonely, so the after conference discussions with other fellows were great and something I am looking forward to.” Debjani Bhattacharyya

“First of all, thank you so much for that really warm reception in Delhi. Although it was too early in my research to contribute productively to the meeting, I’m really glad I attended and had the opportunity to meet all the others and hear about their research. I think the best part of it for me was the collegiality and

the enormously productive exchange of ideas, questions and suggestions that you facilitated. The arrangements were fantastic, and I have to confess I fell in love with the building. Most impressive of all, perhaps because it was something I didn’t know AIIS was involved in at this scale, was the ethnomusicology archive and the facilities available there- made me wish I were doing research connected with it in some way. Well, perhaps I will some day! Anyway, I hope you have a great year ahead- thanks once again for arranging the conference and being such great hosts. I look forward to meeting you again soon!” Shefali Jha

“It is of course a pleasure to be able to pass on heartfelt words about a very enjoyable two days. It is too often the case that working on one’s dissertation research feels like a solitary, lonely journey. There are few nicer feelings than when that journey is punctuated by the opportunity to step back, think about and then explain one’s work. And there are fewer opportunities, still, that rival ones like the AIIS Junior Fellows conference earlier this week, when one can also hear what one’s peers own journeys look like, the challenges they are facing, and the discoveries they have made. I look forward to continuing conversations with other Junior Fellows as our work progresses and we find ourselves (fingers crossed) younger academics who are challenging each other and pushing our respective fields forward. Looking forward to seeing you again soon; thank you for all your efforts this week and at all other times!” Ben Siegel

“I would like to thank AIIS for organizing the two day conference for the Junior fellows. It couldn’t have come at a better moment since I have finished a third of my research period in India. The questions and suggestions from the other junior fellows and the senior fellows had given me new ideas, both in seeking new sources and in interpreting the information that I have already collected. Listening to other junior fellows about their research experiences and interacting with them on the sidelines certainly created lots of positive energy that we all could take back to our research venues! In addition, Dr. Vandana indicated that she can introduce me to Archaeological Survey of India staff who might help me to access the temple records in Tamil Nadu. All in all a very useful trip and experience.” Sundar Vadlamudi

Ameya Pawar, who participated in the AIIS Hindi Summer Language Program in Jaipur in 2009, will become Chicago’s very first Indian-American alderman. Mr. Pawar will assume his position as alderman of the 47^thWard on the north side of Chicago on May 16, 2011.

Mr. Pawar received a Critical Languages Scholarship from the U.S. Department of State, administered by the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, to participate in the AIIS Hindi Program. He is currently pursuing a masters degree in the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago and works at Northwestern University as a program assistant in the Office of Emergency Management.

Mr. Pawar, who ran his campaign on a shoestring budget, won an upset victory in the city election on February 22, 2011, defeating the candidate anointed by the outgoing alderman—a candidate who was endorsed by a number of powerful Chicago politicians.

On his web site he notes, “As a State Department Scholar, I learned from some of this country’s brightest minds.  In India, I had many interesting conversations about politics.  One question continually arose: “Wouldn’t it be great if we could just set politics aside for once and focus on what is needed?” It reminded me of many late-night discussions in college, and it renewed the promise of my youthful idealism.  So today I am running for alderman without a political agenda and with a focus on improving the city.”