A fresh take on Modern India from visiting academic
Dr Kamtekar is an Associate Professor of History at India's premier university, Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, with a research focus on wartime politics and decolonisation in South Asia.
Under a Memorandum of Understanding signed last year between Victoria and the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), a visiting ICCR Chair will visit Victoria every year to teach a course on Modern Indian history. Dr Kamtekar, who has a PhD degree from University of Cambridge, is the second to visit under the arrangement.
He has joined the School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations to teach a special topic course called “Histories of Modern India.” “Soon after India became independent in 1947, there was this idea that there should be one national political history. But history thinking has changed - we now look at the history of different groups with diverging experiences, as well as social and cultural history, including the history of education, food, clothing, and health.”
It is Dr Kamtekar’s first visit to New Zealand. He’s fascinated by the different British influence here compared to India, and he enjoys experiencing different academic environments. After Victoria, he heads to Heidelberg University in Germany, and he has taught for two years at the National University of Singapore.
He is a big advocate of the benefit of an arts education, though he says in India business and technical degrees are often valued more.
“If you study science, you deal with very complex ideas but your opinion on them doesn’t really count. An arts education enables young people to form their own opinions – we offer the chance for students to learn to make up their own minds.”
Dr Kamtekar will be giving a public lecture this Thursday, 3 August, on the period of transition from colonial rule to independence in India.