LIST OF PUBLICATIONS

School of Social Sciences

• "Perspectives on Economic Development and Social Change", Y. Chinna Rao, PSDE.
• "Science, Technology Policy and the Diffusion of Knowledge: Understanding the Dynamics of Innovation Systems in the Asia Pacific", Krishna, V. V., & Tim Turpin (eds.), CSSP.
• "The British Empire and the Natural World: Environmental Encounters in South Asia", D'Souza, Rohan; Deepak Kumar and Vinita Damodaran and (eds.), CSSP.
• "Open Access to Knowledge and Information: Scholarly Literature and Digital Library Initiatives  the South Asian Scenario", Anup Kumar Das, CSSP.
• "Digital Archiving of Audio Content using WINISIS and Greenstone Software: A Manual for Community Radio Managers", Anup Kumar Das, & Bimal Kanti Sen (eds.), CSSP.

School of Language, Literature & Culture Studies

• "Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian Liberation Movement in East Asia: Declassified Documents in China and India", Priyadarsi Mukherji, CCSEAS.
• "Tarjama  Fenn aur Riwayat" (Erbi ke Hawale se), S. A. Rahman, CAAS.
• "Ghadar Party Naik: Kartar Singh Sarastha" (Punjabi), Chaman Lal, CIL
• "Dalit Sahitya: Eik Mulyankan" (Hindi), Chaman Lal, CIL.
• "Bhagat Singh: Vicharran Inqlabi" (Punjabi), Chaman Lal, CIL.
• "Bhagat Singh", Chaman Lal, CIL.
• "Abul Kalam Azad: Nadir Tahriren", Mohd. Shahid Husain, CIL.
• "Premchand Sankalit Kahaniyan", Ram Bux Jat, CIL

Book Release

"Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: Contemporary Anecdotes, Reminiscences and Wartime Reportage" by Prof. Priyadarsi Mukherji, Har-Anand Publications, February 2009.

The book was formally released by Mr. Pradip Bose, a nephew of Netaji, on 08 April 2009 at a function held at the School of Language, Literature & Culture Studies.

The function was presided over by Prof. Ramadhikari Kumar, Rector, JNU. Dr. Geeta Kochhar, Assistant Professor in Chinese JNU gave an introduction of the author Prof. Priyadarsi Mukherji, Chairman of the Centre for Chinese & South-East Asian Studies, JNU. While introducing the book, Prof. Kumar mentioned that it has been written from a subaltern perspective where ordinary soldiers of Azad Hind have become narrators of the history of that era.

One of the Guests of Honour at the function was a former Lieutenant of the Indian National Army (INA), Mr. Hari Ram. He joined the INA in 1942 after the Japanese victory over Singapore. He was in the Intelligence Group of the INA and had fought in the battlefields of Manipur in 1944-45. He narrated his wartime experiences. Two of his companions from the INA, Mr. R.P. Madhavan and Mr. Bel Bahadur also attended the function.

The other Guest of Honour was Mrs. Momota B. Mehta, originally from Rangoon, Burma. She joined the Rani of Jhansi Regiment at the age of 16, and had the opportunity to meet Netaji many times during the war. Her observations reflected the authenticity of the documents and the rare narratives contained in the book. She commended the author for writing "nothing but truth".
The Chief Guest of the function, Mr. Pradip Bose, commended the author for his hard work, factual clarity and passion for Netaji. Mr. Bose said that the post-1947 government in India has repeatedly sought to legitimize the role of anti-Netaji faction by obliterating Netaji's role in the freedom struggle.

Mr. Debasis Bagchi, former CVO and ex-CBI officer of 1967 batch, and an ardent admirer of Netaji, as the discussant, touched upon the significance of Netaji's philosophy and the Azad Hind movement in Indian history. He strongly refuted the air-crash theory involving Netaji, and put forth various angles to the mystery behind Netaji's disappearance in the light of British and American Intelligence Reports.

Finally the author Prof. Priyadarsi Mukherji thanked all the speakers and participants at the function. He highlighted his recent efforts in trying to alter the Chinese viewpoints about Netaji which had been full of anomalies. He passionately spoke about the dishonour done to Netaji by the Indian government. That is why, he felt, it was necessary to rewrite history from an unconventional perspective.

The function was followed by the screening of a film Enemy of Empire, documenting Netaji's life and struggle, produced by Charles Bruce of BBC. The main objective of the film has been to remove the stigma of Fascism from Bose, and to show that none other than Bose was considered by the British as their enemy.

Priyadarsi Mukherji, Professor,
Centre for Chinese and South East Asian Studies,
SLL&CS

Mapping Language, Mind and Brain : Studies in Biolinguistics

Mapping Language, Mind and Brain: Studies in Biolinguistics,  a set of three volumes by Professor Vaishna Narang, Centre for Linguistics, SLL&CS, JNU was released by Professor Yash Pal, Chancellor, JNU on 26th March 2009. The three volumes published by Yash Publications, New Delhi, include Acquisition of speech in Indian bilingual children Disorders of Communication: Studies in Aphasia, Acalculia and Dysarthria. Voices and Genes (Jointly with Prof RNK Bamezai, SLS/ JNU)

Welcoming the Chancellor, Prof Yash Pal, the Vice Chancellor (acting) Prof R.Kumar, the Dean, SLL&CS and the (acting) Dean, SLS, Prof Neera Bhalla Sareen, colleagues, and students, Dr Ayesha Kidwai introduced the discipline of Biolinguistics, and the UPOE scheme of the UGC under which two major projects sponsored were from the Centre for Linguistics. While her own project was  more theoretical, the one on "Mapping Language, Mind & Brain: Studies in Biolinguistics" by Prof Narang had a strong empirical component  which is reported in the three volumes being released. I her welcome address Dr Kidwai also mentioned that the discipline of linguistics has had tremendous/ enormous growth, becoming more and more interdisciplinary in the past five decades. The Centre has proposed a School for Language Sciences in the XIth plan so as to be able to do justice to the discipline, its various branches/ aspects of study.

The Dean, SLL&CS, Prof Basu and Prof Neera B.Sareen, (acting) Dean, SLS,  congratulated the Centre for Linguistics for two major projects under UPOE scheme of the UGC in the Xth plan, and  mentioned how interdisciplinary research in JNU has reached that level where it is possible to collaborate across disciplines and across schools.

Prof Yash Pal, Chancellor, JNU releasing the books expressed happiness at the development of new areas of research and marveled at the new terminologies developing to keep pace with the developments in research. He emphasized the need for research beyond boundaries so that a researcher could wander around in the universe of knowledge, learning from any discipline and contributing to any and every discipline in his/ her pursuit of knowledge. He also said that for interdisciplinary research one need not have two degrees, two Ph.D's. It should be possible in a University, to have exposure to the other disciplines for a broad perspective.

Prof Narang, project director and the author of the books, thanking all the friends and colleagues, highlighted the salient features of the project activities as well as the three publications as the output. Underlining the significance of research across those restrictive discipline boundaries, or even institutional boundaries for that matter, she specifically thanked all project partners who contributed to this research  project , and also to research in the centre during this period of five years of the Xth plan.

This project she said, could only be conducted in a place like JNU, since  JNU -known for its interdisciplinary research and pedagogy is unique in many ways. It actually allows you all the academic freedom that you would possibly want; it allows you to dream big, and then explore, experiment, find your own ways and methods for the realization of those dreams.

She said it was a pleasure to see the results of the project, both in terms of development of technologies as well as in promoting interdisciplinary research in the university. In today's day and age interdisciplinarity is important for any worthwhile pursuit of knowledge.

Collaboration with Neuroscientists and neurology departments for this project included: AIIMS, New Delhi; Christian Medical College and Dayanand Medical College, Ludhiana; two neuro-science centres in Guwahati, and NBRC, Manesar.

A number of case studies on disorders of communication conducted with the help of these medical institutions are included in the second volume.

Collaboration with speech scientists for speech/ signal processing especially with the Scientific Analysis Group (SAG), DRDO, working on speech identification and speaker characterization studies. This was extremely important for our studies on autistic speech, dysarthric speech and even on normal speech & voice characteristics. Interacting with speech scientists from DRDO, on a daily basis, was a continuous learning experience.

Collaboration with geneticists: National Institute for Applied Human Genetics, School of Life Sciences, JNU.  Prof. RNK Bamezai, Director, NIAHG/ SLS, is the coauthor of "Voices & Genes", which is the third volume being released today.  This is the first initiative of its kind in India. The authors look at it as a pilot study which has actually given them important correlations between some voice features and some genetic features, some strong hypotheses to explore further.

Prof.  R.Kumar, acting Vice Chancellor, who was chairing the session, expressed great pleasure and pride in the fact that such a landmark study was conducted in his school. He congratulated the authors and also the Centre for Linguistics for their achievements.

Ms Anisha Agarwal, research student at the Centre delivered the vote of thanks.

Vaishna Narang, Professor
Centre of Linguistics, SLL&CS.

Book Review

Ganguly, Shyama Prasad (ed.), Adbhut Digvijay or the Adventures of Don Quixote of La Mancha by Bipin Behari Chakrabarti, Ebang Mushayera, Kolkata,

"…..Clearly a don's homage to another Don"

That is how The Telegraph of Kolkata described this new publication, Adbhut Digvijay, which is a new reprinted version of the first ever translation in any language in India of the world famous book of Cervantes titled El Ingenioso Hidalgo don Quixote de La Mancha.

The book, edited by Prof. Ganguly of JNU, was launched in a function held at the Cervantes Institute of New Delhi in collaboration with the Sahitya Akademi and The Spanish Embassy on the 6 May, 2009, celebrating the International Day of the Book.

First published in 1887 in Bengali, it can be considered as a milestone in the history of translation of foreign texts in India.  In the launch function Prof. Ganguly explained how the revival of this old text, which in its original form consisted or 360 printed pages, is not only important for its story-telling power but also for its theoretical and structural underpinnings, hitherto ignored in our context, for translation and reception studies.  According to him, while the text is rich enough to be examined from the perspectives of many modern theoretical issues, it also fills a vacuum in re-looking at our old texts from a modern perspective, beyond the oft practiced dichotomy of the classical vs the modern.

Terming the publication as historical, Prof. Namwar Singh, well known intellectual and Emeritus Professor of JNU, who spoke eloquently on the occasion, thought that this was a memorable moment in the history of Indian literature.

Don Quixote is the most influential work of literature to emerge from the Spanish Golden Age and the entire Spanish literary canon.  As a founding work of modern Western literature, it regularly appears high on lists of greatest works of fiction published ever.

In this detailed introductory study Prof. Ganguly explains how the main feature of the Bengali translation, which was done from an English version, is its near complete Indianisation/domestication of characters, places, customs etc without disturbing the episodic development of the story. Here, Quixote is Kantiram, Sancho Panza is Golokchand and Dulcinea is Kamalmalini though the horse remains Rocinante.  Bipin Bihari also finishes his story after the 27th chapter of the 1st Part of the original book as per indications of the fictitious Arabic originator of the story, Benengeli, referred to playfully by Cervantes himself.  The Bengali translator has chosen the common elements of the two cultures, Spanish and Indian (Bengali) t select his episodes which have sometimes even been abridged.  Some lost pages of the 1887 version have been retranslated by a modern specialist who provides a good field of comparison.  On the whole the translation is vary spontaneous and natural and evokes similar reaction in the readers as would the original in Spanish.

The long lost Bengali Don Quixote has again come back to life, thanks to this painstaking research, if only to make the point that only those works are eternal which carry within a dynamic live force that determines their revival.

© 2005 Jawaharlal Nehru University. All rights reserved.
Phones: +91-11-26742676, 26742575, 26741557. Fax: 26742580
New Mehrauli Road, New Delhi 110067.