Speakers
What made India embrace the developmental state?
Chandan Gowda presents his book Longing for an Elsewhere, arguing that this decision was born not from mid-twentieth century decolonization, but rather from colonized elites’ earlier hunger for civilizational recognition through progress. The talk is followed by a panel discussion and audience Q&A.
Beyond repositioning when development discourse was born, the book argues that culture actively shapes what is often treated as a purely economic process. This is examined through the case of Mysore, the princely state that pursued its own path to development under British indirect rule between 1881 and 1947, tracing the cultural forces that guided its ideas and endeavours.
Speakers
Chandan Gowda
Chandan Gowda is Professor and Dean, School of Liberal Arts, Vidyashilp University, Bengaluru. His essay collection, Another India: Events, Memories, People (Simon and Schuster, India), was published last year. He is currently editing The Greatest Kannada Short Stories Ever Told (Aleph) and Daredevil Mustafa (HarperCollins, India), a story collection by Kannada writer Purnachandra Tejasvi. He is a columnist with Deccan Herald.
Manu N Chakravarthy
N. Manu Chakravarthy is a professor at The National College, Basavanagudi, and Bangalore Central University, and a distinguished critic and film theorist contributing to literary and cultural criticism in English and Kannada. He has written extensively on Indian and Iranian cinema, director Girish Kasaravalli, and Kannada Cinema figures including Vijay Bhaskar, K. S. Ashwath, Raj Kumar, and Ananth Nag, in works such as Re/Viewing Iranian Cinema and Imaging the Oppressed. He won the National Film Award for Best Critic (2011). His book Culturing Realism: Reflections on Girish Kasaravalli’s Films collects previously published critical reviews and interviews.
Sanjay Reddy
Sanjay G. Reddy is Professor of Economics and former Chair of the Department of Economics, and an affiliated member of the Department of Politics, at The New School for Social Research in New York. He is known for his conceptual work in the social sciences and applied work on national and global development issues. He has taught in various international academic summer schools and advanced training courses, and visited academic and research institutions worldwide.
Prithvi Datta Chandra Shobhi
Prithvi Datta Chandra Shobhi is a scholar of Karnataka’s history, politics, and Kannada literature. He teaches history and the humanities at Krea University, where he serves as Dean of the School of Interwoven Arts and Sciences (SIAS).
Ranjana Raghunathan
Ranjana Raghunathan is an anthropologist and Assistant Professor in the School of Liberal Arts at Vidyashilp University, Bangalore. Her research focuses on Bangalore’s neighbourhood histories and the narratives of urban development. At Vidyashilp University, she established an Ethnography Lab to foster collaboration and dialogue through ethnographic research and writing among academics and the broader community.
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