Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c15.t2: China Studies in India
Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c15.t2
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China Studies in India
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China Studies is a distinct multi-disciplinary field of scholarly inquiry and education that provides a broad humanistic understanding of China's past and present. China Studies is located in the broader field of Area Studies, and is also interdisciplinary in character, incorporating elements of the social sciences and humanities. The field encourages scholars from diverse disciplines to exchange ideas on scholarship as it relates to the Chinese experience and to experiences of China in the world. In India, although the concept of area studies is relatively recent, China Studies has been an area of interest even before India's independence. India's interest in China Studies is actually rooted in India-China cultural interactions in the ancient times. However, in the later part of the colonial period, the colonial powers imposed a perspective that suited their own interest; as a result, to a large extent the academic scholarship on China became dependent on Western sources. It was then that the great poet and thinker Rabindranath Tagore underscored the shared civilisational heritage of India and China.
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The growth of China Studies in India received its initial impetus from the desire to explore India's cultural ties with its neighbours and such ties were seen to be non-colonialist. This provided an opportunity for forging new relations outside the colonial framework, critiquing western colonialism
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Professor Tan Yunshan and Cultural Relations between India and China: Commemoration Volume, front cover
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and offering an Indian alternative for an emerging post-colonial order. Academic concerns were framed within a larger context of knowledge of China that went back to the early historical ties established by the monks who spread Buddhism, as well as by trade.
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The second layer was formed through the popular support for China's war against Japanese aggression and for the emerging Chinese communist movement. The ideological influence of China on the left movement in India carried through the post-1962 period and exercised a considerable influence in turning people to the study of China in the sixties and seventies. The third layer emerged out of the concern of the government to develop expertise on China after 1962. These layers overlap and have helped to create the context within which China Studies was established and is developing in the universities. The Ford Foundation, because of US interest in learning about China, helped to provide crucial funding through library grants and scholarships to send scholars to study in American universities. Direct contact either with China or Taiwan was not possible on any meaningful basis in the academic sphere at that time.
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This multi-layered history of the growth and development of China Studies in India explains its present shape, and the existing lacunae. The early history of contact with China through Buddhism and trade has been studied, but the links through India's northern borders or through the maritime routes through Southeast Asia is an area that still needs to be further explored. The colonial linkages through trading houses, soldiers, missionaries, etc., have also been partially explored, but there exist wide gaps that can provide an entry point for exploiting interest to promote China Studies within the university system.
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The academic programmes in China Studies, as it is understood today, did not develop in a holistic fashion; some aspects of China Studies were integrated into academic programmes before other aspects. The first programme on Chinese language was introduced in Calcutta University in 1918; however, due to lack of students and resources, the programme shut down in the early 20th century. After Rabindranath Tagore's historic visit to China, due to his vision, wisdom and effort, Cheena Bhavana, Department of Chinese Language and Culture, was established in the university he founded, Visva-Bharati, in 1937. Subsequently, in the 1940s, a Chinese language teaching programme was started in the University of Calcutta and Banaras Hindu University, with the University of Delhi following suit in the 1950s. Jawaharlal Nehru University started a five-year integrated Masters Programme in Chinese language in 1970s.
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The academic programmes, especially research programmes on Area Studies, started only after Independence in 1947, as a result of the new Indian leadership's desire to develop and nurture expertise on China. It was with this objective that the Indian School of International Studies, later renamed Indian Council of World Affairs, was established in 1948. This research programme was eventually integrated with Jawaharlal Nehru University as the School of International Studies in the 1960s. In the University of Delhi, a research programme on Buddhist Studies was started in the Department of Buddhist Studies in 1958, and in the Centre for Chinese Studies in 1964. The Centre for Chinese Studies was later renamed the Department of Chinese & Japanese Studies in which an Area Studies model was adopted by combining disciplinary expertise with specialisation on China. In the last decade it has been renamed again as Department of East Asian Studies.
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Campus of the University of Delhi, Delhi, India
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Campus of Jawaharlal Nehru University, India
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The 1962 border conflict with China was a watershed that laid the foundations for greater research on China and building up expertise in the government, mainly focusing on foreign policy and security issues. As travel between India and China was severely restricted in this period there was little academic or other exchange between the two countries. Academic exchanges resumed in 1978, but started to flourish only at the end of the 1980s. The focus of the academic exchanges was on Language, Culture, and some Social Science disciplines, especially History and Political Thought.
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The visit of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to China in 1988 is considered a turning point in India-China relations; it enhanced and deepened state-to-state and people-to-people interaction in many aspects of the bilateral relations. There was a rapid growth of interest in China from the 1990s, particularly because of the expanding economic relations, and this manifested itself in a greater exchange of visits and academic interaction, and an increase in the number of students going to China. Many research institutes started to have a section devoted to China or are in the process of establishing one.
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In 1991, the Institute of Chinese Studies (ICS) was established, formalising an informal discussion group of China scholars that had been functioning since the 1950s and that had been bringing out a journal called ‘*China Report*’, the only journal in India exclusively on China. The ICS brought together faculty and research scholars from both University of Delhi and Jawaharlal Nehru University as well as former diplomats and people from other fields and professions with a specialised interest in China. They had wide research interests, namely International Relations and Strategic Studies, Political & Economic Development of China, History and Historiography, Society and Culture and were committed to the study of China from an inter-disciplinary perspective. The ICS holds regular seminars and conferences, undertakes projects, and is involved in academic exchange as well as track exchanges with organisations in China, Russia and Japan. ICS has also been holding many outreach activities such as an annual All India Conference of China Studies, in order to spread interest and strengthen research in China Studies in the hinterland of India.
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In the last decade and a half, China Studies in India has witnessed a steady development with more and more human and material resources being invested in it. While the majority of students graduating from language programmes have been finding jobs in Government Ministries & Departments, the tourism sector and in multinational companies, some are finding teaching jobs in universities and a few are continuing higher studies in Area Studies research programmes. Of the students graduating from International Relations and Social Sciences disciplines, some pursue higher studies in Area Studies research programmes, and others find jobs in research institutes and teaching institutions.
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Along with old and established research institutes such as the Institute of Defense Studies & Analysis, Indian Council of World Affairs, Centre for Policy Research, Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies etc that have been devoting some resources to research on China, new centres of research in China Studies have also emerged since the turn of the century. On the one hand, more and more Central and State Universities are starting teaching programmes focussing on China, while on the other, the University Grants Commission has been establishing Special Centres for China Studies in reputed universities and institutions across the country. At the same time, many private Chinese language teaching centres have emerged in major cities of India; these centres, though not undertaking serious research on China, have managed to attract those keen on learning Chinese because of their professional necessity. Moreover, with the Central Board of Secondary Education introducing Chinese language as a subject at the middle school level, it is hoped that interest in China could be nurtured to an extent that students will carry their interest into high school and universities and will feed into the increasing number of students taking up China Studies as a specialisation.