Born in 1966, Rakesh BATABYAL is the Associate Professor and Deputy Director, Academic Staff College, JNU, New Delhi. He holds a Ph.D. on Modern History from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 1996 (Communalism in Bengal: from Famine to Noakhali (1943-47))
Research and Teaching Interests:
1. The Life-World of Universities. I am working on the history of the university from a perspective which provides an understanding of their foundational principles, locational attributes and growth trajectories. The study looks into the politics - local, regional and national, the economy and the culture which affected the growth of universities and their functioning, and the manner in which they have been shaping themselves over the last century.
2. The Idea of Nationalism in the “non Western West”: I wish to focus on the emergence of National Imaginations in post Imperial independent states to understand the intersticing of religion, language and nation. (Exploring why the experience of nation and nationalism in eastern and central Europe is generally not taken cognizance of, either in the west or in Indian academia.) I have begun my field-work in Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary - the eastern and Central European societies.
3. History of Colonialism: In this project I am trying to understand the manner in which intellectuals have tried to understand and theorize the experience of colonialism. A central feature of this effort would be to locate the nature of history writing and the institutional setting of those writings in selected countries in Africa, Latin America and South Asia.
Work Experience at Academic Staff College, JNU
a. Involved in organising about 30 Orientation Courses and about 80 subject specific Refresher courses that the College has organised during 2000-2007-8, which altogether brought more than 8000 teachers from across the country and South Asia to the College.
At the ASC, I have personally engaged with the teachers who come here from across the country. In the course of interaction with them, I have sought to encourage them to participate in public life and create a pan Indian teaching community committed to excellence and relevance. Towards this goal, I have actively encouraged teachers particularly the younger ones, to take up research themes and projects etc.
b. Collaboration efforts
We at the ASC have taken initiatives to open up our training facilities to teachers from abroad so that our teachers find a platform to interact with teachers and researchers from other countries.
c. Workshops and Conferences
The Academic Staff College, JNU, took the initiative and organized the first Principals’ Workshop in November 2006, where Principals of ten of the oldest colleges in the country discussed their past achievements, current challenges and future visions. As coordinator of the workshop, I invited alumni of the ASC to participate and provide the college teachers’ perspective in the deliberations. In October 2007, an international seminar on History of Religions to mark the birth centenary of Mircea Eliade was held with twelve international participants and forty Indian ones at the ASC. As coordinator, I invited those alumni who have done their research in this area to present papers in the seminar.
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