Georgetown’s international collaborations expanded again last week with the announcement by Nirupama Menon Rao, the Ambassador of India to the United States, of a new Chair of Indian Culture and Society affiliated with the School of Foreign Service and Georgetown’s English department.
Next week, a summit on higher education with leaders from both American and Indian governments and academic communities, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, will convene at Georgetown.
The University’s deepening relationship with Indian institutions holds great promise for the Georgetown community. As India’s economic importance continues to increase and as America’s relationship with Pakistan continues to deteriorate, South Asian studies is an obvious candidate for expansion at Georgetown.
It is a welcome change to see the University pursuing international relationships that have value to the entire Georgetown community. In contrast, the school’s increasing ties with oppressive Chinese government institutions offer little to Georgetown scholars and students, while our expanding relationship with India offers a great amount of academic value. Fruitful engagement with a democratic, pluralist government is exactly the kind of international collaboration that Georgetown ought to seek.
Though Rao argued that India is not in competition with China for global status, her remarks on the value of the higher education summit set India’s government apart from its oppressive neighbor. Reflecting on the similarities of the United States and India, Rao said, “The spirit of inquiry, creativity and the tradition of imparting knowledge have been the hallmarks of our two societies.” Such virtues seem less important to the Chinese regime with which the University has dramatically increased ties. Georgetown has 27 agreements with Chinese institutions, compared to just six with Indian ones.
Rao’s hope for education in India to be a “vessel for social change” stands in stark contrast to the efforts of two of Georgetown’s partners in China, the Central Party School and the State Administration for Religious Affairs, essentially finishing schools for the Communist Party elite. The University has yet to explain adequately how training senior Communist Party bureaucrats does justice to our core Jesuit values. On the other hand, affecting social change has always been a mission of the Jesuits and of Georgetown specifically. The University’s growing relationship with India is an excellent way to keep doing that.
