India, South and South East Asia Project

The study of India, South and South East Asia in Hull started in earnest in the 1960s when Tom Kemp of the Department of Economic and Social History started teaching Indian economic history. This was followed by John Major, of the Department of History, who included twentieth century Indian history as a component of a course on comparative historical developments. At the same time, in the Department of Theology, Andrew Rawlinson introduced a series of courses on Indian philosophy and religion. The Department of Economics & Commerce included studies of India in its teaching of development economics and banking.

 

Professor Arthur Pollard of the Department of English broadened his existing study of Commonwealth literature in the 1970s to encompass Anglo-Indian fiction. After his retirement, this discipline continued to be taught by Owen Knowles. Lewis Hill of the Centre for South-East Asian Studies has conducted teaching and research on the social anthropology of the hill peoples of the Assam-Burma border. In 1985, Subrata Mitra was appointed to a ‘new blood lectureship’ in Indian politics which was awarded to the Department of Politics by the University Grants Committee. In the same year Douglas Reid started teaching Indian history under the British Raj in the Department of Economic & Social History. Most significantly, in 1990 the Centre for Indian Studies was created under the Direction of Lord Bhikhu Parekh.

 

Though the Centre for Indian Studies did not withstand Lord Parekh’s departure from the University, teaching and research on India and South East Asia continued throughout the University. Dr Douglas Reid and Dr David Omissi are offering modules on Indian military, political and social history, while Professor Simon C Smith offers teaching and supervision on the decolonisation of South East Asia  at the Department of History while at the School of Politics, Philosophy and International Studies, India’s economy and global impact is taught as part of a module on the BRICs economies by Dr Mahrukh Doctor. More information on our current research on India and South East Asia can be found in our ‘people’ pages.