Opinion Some fresh GIAN

Can India support a global network of academics to teach in its universities?

pushkar

February 18, 2015 12:47 AM IST First published on: Feb 18, 2015 at 12:47 AM IST

Will the government allow US-based academics who are critical of the Hindu right’s cultural agenda to be associated with GIAN?

Following US President Barack Obama’s recent visit to India, the governments of the United States and India have “pledged to collaborate through India’s Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN) to facilitate short-term teaching and research programmes by up to 1,000 visiting US academics in Indian universities”. This joint statement followed an earlier one by the leaders of the two countries during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US last year, when the American president “welcomed India’s proposal to establish GIAN under which India would invite and host up to 1,000 American academics each year to teach in Centrally recognised Indian universities, at their convenience”.

GIAN is an ambitious initiative and promises to connect “Centrally recognised” institutions, notably Central universities, IITs and IIMs with the best scholars and institutions in the US. The government’s position is that, among other things, GIAN will be beneficial for the adoption of new methods of pedagogy, boosting research in cutting-edge technologies and building stronger academic networks between both countries.

Fields medalist Manjul Bhargava, the first person of Indian origin to win the prestigious award in mathematics, has been recruited to be the face and facilitator of GIAN. The Princeton professor is optimistic about roping in US-based academics to participate in the initiative.

As is the case with nearly all new initiatives or policies, GIAN has elicited praise in some quarters and scepticism in others. However, in all fairness, at this stage, we can only make some preliminary observations about it.

There is no doubt that as an idea and a plan for action, GIAN holds great promise. Once implemented, provided its execution is carried out with a fair degree of competence, it will, over time, connect knowledge communities in the US and India as well as deepen existing networks to the benefit of our higher education and knowledge sector. For the time being, however, the details and modalities are still being worked out, sometimes at the very last moment. For example, the ministry of human resource development (MHRD) got working on the issue of salaries and benefits for visiting US faculty only a week before Obama’s visit, reportedly at the insistence of the prime minister.

There also seem to be doubts or perhaps just a lack of clarity about the purpose and scope of GIAN. Higher education observers would have noticed an important difference in the joint statements of September 2014 and January 2015. The first identified “teaching” as the purpose of GIAN, whereas the second joint statement included both “teaching” and “research”.

Another important difference, which has been revealed not by the joint statements but the reports on the Modi-Obama meetings, is to do with the disciplines GIAN will cover. In its earlier version, GIAN was conceived of as a way to create a channel for US academics in science, technology, engineering and mathematics to spend time at higher education institutions across India. Six months later, humanities has been added to the list of disciplines. It is possible that the Indian side woke up to include “research” and “humanities” as relevant to GIAN or maybe the Americans suggested their inclusion. We should perhaps not read too much into these changes. It is likely that they only reflect the fact that GIAN is in the early stages of design.

There are several other areas of concern but many may well become irrelevant over time and other, less anticipated issues will come to the fore. However, there are three points worth bringing up. First, it is clear that the success of GIAN will depend substantially on the coordination and management capacities of the MHRD and the concerned higher education institutions. Can they deliver effectively?

Second, in the near future, perhaps fewer than half of the higher education institutions linked to GIAN would be in a position to utilise it fully. Many Central universities, IITs and IIMs have either not been built or are still under construction. Several others have inadequate infrastructure or are situated in “difficult” locations. Finally, there are those institutions that, for different reasons, do not attract a sufficient number of good faculty and/ or students.

Third, with the inclusion of humanities, there is potential for controversy. The task of identifying the names of established US scholars and recruiting them for GIAN will involve Indian institutions and the MHRD. It is not known whether American academics can “volunteer” for GIAN, directly or via the US government, and if so, whether the Indian side will welcome known and possible critics of the current government and its policies. For example, will the government allow US-based academics who are critical of the Hindu right’s cultural agenda to be associated with GIAN?

The writer is assistant professor at the department of humanities and social science, Birla Institute of Technology and Science Pilani, Goa.

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