Vice-Chancellor (V-C) Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit said on Friday that the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is eager to teach history lessons as well as produce and collect research material on intellectuals from various states provided state governments are willing to grant money.
Pandit’s remarks come after The Indian Express reported on Friday that JNU intends to establish a ‘Centre of Excellence’ named after Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, which will draw lessons from his time to better grasp the “concept of Akhand Bharat” and his “struggle for Hindavi Swaraj.”
The Maharashtra government-funded Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Centre for Security & Strategic Studies in the School of International Studies will teach Indian strategic thought, Maratha military history, Shivaji’s naval strategy, and guerilla warfare, among other subjects.
In an interview with The Indian Express, Pandit stated that his goal is to spread knowledge. I was always fascinated by Indic storytelling, so I took the initiative to build the center. When I was a student at JNU, I constantly wondered why we weren’t learning more about Indian myths and intellectuals.
Indians are innovative thinkers. We’ve overlooked many of our intellectuals’ strategies, and it’s time to alter that,” she said. Pandit stated that if any state government expresses interest and provides funding to JNU for research on other Indian philosophers, the university would gladly take advantage of the opportunity.
“For example, if the Tamil Nadu or Odisha government is prepared to support us with finances, we would be more than pleased to provide historical lectures regarding the Cholas and Kalinga’s trading in South East Asia.