Understanding India in Historical & Global Context

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

Understanding India in Global and Historical Context: As the global population hits 8 billion, approximately one out of every seven people on the face of the planet is Indian. The current Prime Minister of Great Britain and many CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are of Indian origin. India boasts a democratic system of governance and a robust economy that is thriving, despite a history of colonialism. At the same time, however, majoritarian tendencies that are communal in nature, influenced heavily by Hindu nationalist politics, and often supported financially by the Indian diaspora, threaten to tarnish what could be India's century. In order to understand these dynamics, students will learn about Political Science more generally and about how Comparative Politics approaches the study of India both theoretically and methodologically. Students will learn about open questions in Political Science's understanding of contemporary India and about how scholars are engaged in answering those questions. Students will also learn to identify the problems associated with a purely disciplinary approach. The course will then expose students to alternative approaches, as any attempt to understand modern India requires that one use a variety of tools and draw from a diverse array of disciplines. While grounded in Political Science as a discipline, it will also pull from Anthropology, History, Sociology and Economics to help students make sense of contemporary developments. Finally, the course is experiential in nature. Students will engage with scholarly material, but also use Mumbai as their classroom, using the real world to find answers to answer intellectual questions and illuminate disciplinary theories, but also to investigate disciplinary concerns and generate new lines of inquiry. The course will include classroom instruction at St. Xavier's College in Mumbai on three separate topics: 1) "India and the World - A Shared Past"; 2) "Development, Diversity and Pluralism: Challenges for India Today"; and 3) "A Critical Review of Globalizing India." It will also include a variety of field experiences designed to familiarize students with the city/region and to explore topics raised through classroom instruction. To bring together the diverse array of learning materials presented in the course, students will be required to submit a final paper that asks a question that is both grounded in the Political Science literature and informed by field experience. They will then review relevant literature and develop an empirical strategy that could be used to answer their own question.