With a stipend of Rs 1.5 lakh a month and mentorship by eminent scholars Ramachandra Guha and Srinath Raghavan, among others, it is no surp...
With a stipend of Rs 1.5 lakh a month and mentorship by eminent scholars Ramachandra Guha and Srinath Raghavan, among others, it is no surprise that when the call for applications to the New India Foundation Fellowships open, the organisation is overwhelmed by the response. The idea of the Foundation, with its focus on the study and writing on modern Indian history, has been a revelation, opening new and necessary avenues for Indian academics, journalists and authors to retell narratives of independent India that have long been neglected.
But these are unprecedented and unfortunate times. A pandemic inevitably brings economic bloodshed in its wake, and the story is not different for India. With cases surging past two million, the economy has taken a crippling hit. Politics, culture and society – all touchstones of history – are in a state of flux. Against the backdrop of an undoubted crossroads in modern India’s story, then, the New India Foundation’s call for applications becomes even more important. Can the opportunities it provides be the tools for change in today’s economically hamstrung scenario? What new platform can the Foundation build to enable the study of our evolving history, by and for the future? Srinath Raghavan, a...
