Teaching International Relations in India: Reminiscences and Critical Appreciation

This article illuminates the disciplinary development of International Relations (IR) and Area Studies (AS) across India. It records the consolidation of IR as a discipline in multiple universities and narrates several initiatives that were undertaken at the central level to strengthen IR and AS in India. The author draws from his personal experience of over five decades in the discipline, learning, developing, consolidating and expanding the reach of IR and AS nationwide. While the School of International Studies (SIS), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) served as the training ground for him, the author went on to occupy prominent roles in different universities and as part of important committees, contributing to the consolidation of IR and AS in multiple spaces outside of his alma mater—SIS, JNU.