Phone 011 2670 4090 | Founded 1955 | |
Hours Closed today SundayClosedMonday9AM–5PMTuesday9AM–5PMWednesday9AM–5PMThursday9AM–5PMFriday9AM–5PMSaturdayClosed Similar Jawaharlal Nehru University, University of Delhi, IGNOU Head Office, Ignou, Jamia Millia Islamia | ||
Indian School of International Studies (Hindi: इंडियन स्कूल ऑफ इंटरनेशनल स्टडीज) was an academic institution created in 1955 which merged with the Jawaharlal Nehru University in 1970 and was renamed as the School of International Studies,JNU. It was founded by Pandit Hriday Nath Kunzru, Prof. A.Appadorai and Professor M.S. Rajan, under the auspices of the Indian Council of World Affairs. In the 15 years of its existence, it came to be noted as the leading institute of research in the area of International Relations and Area Studies in India. Many of its former faculty and students went on to occupy academic positions in other universities and research institutes across the country.
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History and Structure
The School was created on the suggestion of the then Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, that there was the need for an institution to help build a pool of academic experts on international affairs and area studies who could give an informed second opinion on India’s relations with the world. The school was inaugurated on 1 October 1955 in the presence of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Vice President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. Though initially affiliated to the University of Delhi, it was granted deemed university status in 1961, and could independently grant degrees.
Departments
The School had eleven departments of study.
° Inner Asian Studies
Directors of the School
The School's first Director was Prof. A. Appadorai and he served from 1955-1964. Several steps were taken by him to nurture this first effort of its kind. All students had to compulsorily attend a one year pre-Ph.D course since they did not have a background in International relations. The School's second Director was Prof. M.S. Rajan and he served until the School was merged with the JNU in 1970. The School building at 35, Feroze Shah Road was constructed during his tenure and inaugurated in 1968. Prof. Rajan also solicited fellowships from the governments of the various Indian states for financially disadvantaged students from those states, a practice that continues to this day.
Merger with Jawaharlal Nehru University
The merger with JNU was opposed by the staff and scholars of the School since it was seen to imposed on the school by the government. However, there was nothing much that could be done since the government held the financial purse strings and began to squeeze the school financially to persuade it to fall in line.Even prior to this action, the School had been in the middle of a controversy in Parliament with a parliamentary committee set up to look into various allegations, in response to an intensive campaign run by various vested interests.
A controversy that followed the merger was the decision to bifurcate the library of the ISIS on the basis of ownership of books, documents and journals. The bifurcation was done in a bureaucratic style without regard to the wholeness of collections built up over a period of time, leading the last Director of the ISIS, Prof. M.S. Rajan to describe it as "one of the tragedies that struck ICWA as well as ISIS".