Institute’s President Lutgendorf talks about its activities.
Follow us on Twitter; Facebook
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: The American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS), an academic consortium, has been working to increase the understanding of India in the United States for more than half a century.
Founded by 12 major research universities in 1961, now its membership has grown to more than 75 institutions nationwide. So far it has supported more than 6,000 scholars, in fields such humanities, social sciences and natural sciences, and creative artists.
In an exclusive interview, AIIS President Philip A. Lutgendorf speaks about the Institute, and the work it is doing in India and the United States. A renowned scholar, Lutgendorf is a professor of Hindi and Modern Indian Studies at The University of Iowa, where is he also a Co-Chair of the South Asian Studies Program.
Here are edited excerpts:
Please give us a brief history, overview of the AIIS?
The American Institute of Indian Studies’ membership includes most of the major research universities in the US and many leading liberal arts colleges. All the member institutions have significant programs that focus on the [Indian] subcontinent; they have at least a few faculty members who are experts on some aspect of India, most have language instruction in some Indian language—usually Hindi, but there are other [languages] as well. All of the national resource centers for South Asia have been AIIS member institutions for decades. [AIIS] is, in effect, an NGO. It’s non-profit and non-government, unlike [the] Fulbright [Program], for example. We are run by our academic member institutions. We have just one paid employee, who is based at the University of Chicago; the rest of the people who run [the AIIS] in the US are volunteers who give their time because they believe in [the mission of AIIS]. In India, our staff comprises over 50 employees. It’s a big operation there.
What is the mission or goal of the AIIS? What does it actually do?
AIIS does several things. We run language training programs in India for students coming from the US and other nations. Most of our language students are currently enrolled in undergraduate or post-graduate institutions, but some are out of school, professionals and such who may even be working for an NGO, who have a strong interest in learning an Indian language. English has a very dominant role in India, people are always crazy about learning it, but at the same time about 80 percent of the [country’s] population does not have a mastery of English at all. So you do need to know some Indian language to be able to get around. Unfortunately, most major Indian universities have ESL (English as a Second Language) courses but few have any such courses for Indian languages. AIIS pioneered training teachers to be interactive, lively, and make [Indian language] courses accessible. These programs are available during the academic year and over the summer. Right now, we have 202 students studying 15 languages in 12 locations with AIIS.
Tell us about AIIS’ fellowship programs…
We provide several different kinds of research fellowships for scholars – pre-doctoral for people in Ph.D. programs and post-doctoral for people already in academic careers. These provide support for up to nine months in India; we provide travel money, stipend, and research allowance. Unlike Fulbright, we offer fellowships to both US and non-US citizens. If the focus of someone’s research is India, they would come to AIIS. Many of our best junior fellows are actually Indians studying in the US; when they get their Ph.D., they may choose to go back to India because there are now more academic jobs available and they are very competitive. These fellowships serve many disciplines and are also offered to creative and performing artists – and can be either short-term or long-term. Most people apply in summer by the July 1st deadline, but there’s a smaller mid-winter competition as well that is only open to scholars at our member institutions.
What other programs do you have in India?
We provide logistical support to education programs in India—programs more commonly known as Study Abroad. Many colleges and universities have these kinds of programs with institutions in India, where American students come for a few weeks to an entire year to stay and India and intern or study or volunteer while they’re there. The AIIS works with many colleges and universities and we help them run these programs because we have a permanent institutional presence in India that allows us to recommend the issuance of student visas, as well as help secure practical services like office spaces, tax statements, book keepings, et cetera. For example, Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania has a program in India, and we provide “Business Hindi” training for its students.
You have two research centers in India…
Yes, AIIS maintains two archives and research centers in India. They are housed in Gurgaon, [where we built] a large and beautiful campus about 15 years ago. These archives are open to the public, free of charge, and used by a wide range of Indian scholars. The Center for Art and Archaeology (CA&A) has a very large collection of photos, negatives, architectural drafts, and plans and blueprints of historic structures all over the subcontinent. For example, after the devastating Gujarat earthquake in 2001, many historic temples were damaged. The Gujarat government did not have good records of what some of these temples looked like prior to the earthquakes, but AIIS did in our archives, so we were able to assist the Gujarat government in the restoration of these historical sites. Our other center is called the Archives and Research Center for Ethnomusicology (ARCE). ARCE is dedicated to the performance heritage of India, while CA&A is dedicated to the built heritage of India. ARCE is concerned with drama, art, storytelling, musical performance, et cetera. They have about 28,000 hours of recordings, most in video format and mostly digitized. Shubha Chaudhuri, the Director of ARCE, is a world-renowned archivist and often gives workshops on world-class audiovisual archiving, especially for collections in poorer or developing nations.
Who funds AIIS?
AIIS is supported by dues from member institutions, by private donations, and by grants from various foundations and from the US government. Recently, federal budget cuts have had a serious impact on us, and we are actively seeking private support. For example, groups of Indo-Americans who are concerned about their heritage might want to consider supporting specific language programs, the research centers, or fellowships for non-US citizens, for which we cannot obtain federal funds. As I said, AIIS is guided by scholar-volunteers who give their time and knowledge because they are passionate about India and its culture, and that is how it’s been for 50 years. (Global India Newswire)
To contact the author, email to deepakchitnis@americanbazaaronline.com