Describing India as a fascinating federal system,Dr. Gordon Johnson,president,Wolfson College,Cambridge and the deputy vicechancellor of the University gave an insightful peek into Indian history on Thursday. Johnson was speaking on The Study of India: Half a century of intellectual enquiry and Universities and Society at Pune University. The talk was organised to mark 425 years and 800 years of the Cambridge University Press and University of Cambridge respectively. Johnson,spoke about Indian history and reasoned why the republic of India is still such a successful political entity. It is rather unusual that democracy is flourishing in every state in India,because this is a dynamic and multi-cultural society, said Johnson. A renowned historian specialising in Indian History,he said that it was hard to imagine in the 1960s that India would become what it is today, India has begun exporting people,capital and goods and instead of expecting such a diverse group to breakdown,it has emerged as a liberated nation. The talk moved on from the initial years of the East India Company to the Indian National Congress and the challenges that young India faced post independence. He also urged the audience to understand History in a different context. Of course history is a selective probing of the past to find out about the present,but what is more important is to understand the past differently than today. The most essential duty of a historian is to liberate past rather than colonise it, he said. Commenting on Chinas claim to Arunachal Pradesh Johnson put a very frank answer saying that it has always been a part of India. The second half of the session dealt with the role of universities in present-day society. Also present were Anil Pandey,additional director,Cambridge University India Pvt Ltd,Ashok Thorat,Director,Institute of Advanced Learning Studies in English ( IASE) and Dr Vijay Khare,director,Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Studies Centre.
