New Jindal India Institute Set to Build India's Soft Power Globally

NEW DELHI: The O.P. Jindal Global University (JGU), based in Sonipat, Haryana, has launched a unique, one-of-its-kind Jindal India Institute (JII). It is a strategic think tank housed within a private university for help enable India’s rise in the world by building and disseminating a transnational, intellectually rigorous, evidence-based, multi-disciplinary corpus of knowledge that promotes the positive aspects and achievements of India. JII’s goal is to intellectually decolonise the study and depiction of India and spread global awareness about India’s extraordinary accomplishments and potential in the 21st century.

Until now, only international educational institutions like King’s College London, the University of Birmingham, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Pennsylvania have set up reputed India institutes or centres that cover diverse aspects of the India story through their in-house scholars and transnational networks. Despite the existence of over 1,000 universities and 50,000 higher education institutions in India, not one of them had so far ventured into anything akin to a JII that would tell the remarkable India story to the world.

A multi-disciplinary, all-encompassing India Institute that can bolster India’s rise through an independent narrative about the millions of transformations the country is undergoing has been missing in Indian academia. JII is a pioneer that intends to fill this big vacuum and propel India’s rise. The tagline of JII is “Propelling the Indian Century”, by which the institute means working toward fulfilling national objectives for the centenary of India’s Independence in 2047, such as “Viksit Bharat”, or developed India, and to develop an imagination and roadmap for long-term strategising on how India can be a world leader for the entire 21st century.

JII will led by JGU vice-chancellor C. Raj Kumar, who is JII’s president, and the dean of the Jindal School of International Affairs, Dr Sreeram Chaulia, as JII’s director-general.
The areas which will be covered under JII include India’s democracy, economy, society, culture, spirituality, science and technology, entrepreneurship, inclusiveness, rule-of-law, human rights, education, healthcare provision, environmental conservation, foreign policy, etc.