SAI History

2010-2011:

SAI Symposium The Future of South Asia held in April. The Symposium welcomed international dignitaries, such as Husain Haqqani, Pakistan Ambassador to the U.S., Hardeep Singh Puri, India's Ambassador to the U.N., and Mr. R.K. Pachuari, Cheif Execuitve to the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) as well as local dignitaries, President Drew Fuast and Provost Steven Hyman.
Muhammad Ali joins SAI Team as a consultant in Lahore, lauching the in-region SAI office in Pakistan.
Meena Hewett joins the SAI Cambridge Office as Associate Director.
Tarun Khanna becomes the 2nd Director of the South Asia Initiative.

2008-2009:

Namrata Arora joins the SAI team as Associate Director of the SAI Mumbai Office

2006-2007:

The SAI Steering Committee, consisting of faculty doing significant work on South Asia from across the University, is formed.

2005-2006:

5 undergraduates are funded to go to India as part of SAI's Summer Internship Program. The program links fieldwork in India with academic credit for the first time in Harvard College.
SAI's In-Region office in Mumbai is launched.

2003-2004:

SAI is formally launched with a high-profile international conference,"South Asia: Bridging the Great Divides." The conference brought together South Asian luminaries such as Krishna Bose, M.P., Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs in India; Saleem Sherwani, M.P., Former Minister of State of Foreign Affairs in India; Syeda Abida Hussain, former Member of Parliament, Cabinet Minister, and Ambassador to the United States from Pakistan; and Amitav Ghosh, Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature at the City University of New York. Along with remarks by President Summers and Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, Master at Trinity College, Cambridge University, panelists addressed the thorny problems of partition, migration, and borders; sovereignty; religion and human rights; and the impact of business and economic development on international relations.

"South Asia: Bridging the Great Divides," the collaborative conversation series chaired by Sugata Bose and Homi Bhabha is renamed "South Asia without Borders" to accommodate the study of a wider range of comparisons and connections by a larger number of faculty.

2001:

The South Asia Initaitive is created out of an 'Academic Plan' drafted by Sugata Bose and unanimously adopted by the Asia center Executive Committee.

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SAI History

2006: The Harvard Alumni Association holds the Global Series in New Delhi, India
In March of 2006, President Summers visited India. He spoke at the Reserve Bank of India, All India Institute of Medical Sciences New Delhi, India and the Higher Education Summit of the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Regarding the trip, he said "Every American should visit the country that may be our most important ally two decades from now."
1995: Deep concern about social injustice in India pervaded the Honorable V. P. Singh, former prime minister of India's address to 30 students and diplomats at Harvard
In 1995, a Chair for Tibetan and Himalayan Studies was established. A range of courses in Tibetan and Himalayan Studies are now offered.
1993: A group of Harvard students raised funds for the victims of the earthquake which shook India, leaving close to 30,000 dead. Natasha D. Bir '96 and Rajni Rao '96, both of whom have relatives in India, worked with the South Asian Association to send money to the International Red Cross in India.
1987: President Bok took a three month sabbatical and traveled to India. President Bok said that his first priority in expanding Harvard's coverage of India was to endow a permanent chair in Indian history.
1987: Harvard and the affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital announce a $2 million gift from the Hinduja Foundation (Bombay, India) to promote India-related research and education projects.
1986: David A. Washbrook, a foremost India scholar arrives to Harvard from the University of Warwick in England
1984: At the MIT Chapel, the Harvard and MIT Vedanta Societies held a memorial service for slain Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
1983: King of Nepal, Birenda Bir Bikram Shah Dev, who attended Harvard as a special student from 1967-1968 to study liberal arts, came to an exhibition on Nepalese urban restoration at the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts. After the presentation, the King and Queen dined with President Bok at 17 Quincy Street. The King's gifts, a model of a Hindu temple and a model of a Buddhist Stupe were on displayed outside the dining room.
1980: Pramod Chandra became the first incumbent of the George P. Bickford Professorship of Indian and South Asian Art
In 1975 Government Professor Daniel Patrick Moynihan returned to Harvard after two years as U.S. Ambassador to India.
In 1966 there were 66 students enrolled at Harvard from India.
1961-1963: John Kenneth Galbraith, Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics, served as the U.S. ambassador of India under President Kennedy. Galbraith remained a friend and supporter of India and regularly hosted lunch for Indian students at Harvard on graduation day.
1961 - The Harvard University Glee Club, 61 members strong, stormed into India in its whirlwind concert tour of South Asia. The choral group performed in Calcutta, Madras, Delhi, and Bombay and Greece.
In 1961 President Pusey traveled around East Asia, with stop-offs at six Harvard Clubs, 15 universities including the Universities of Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, and Delhi; and Osmania and Benares Hindu Universities
1955 - Representatives of 20 College and Radcliffe organizations sponsored a program for the development of Indian villages to be undertaken by Indian students at the University of Delhi.
1945 - Seven scientists from India visit Harvard as part of a tour of universities and research institutions designed to foster scientific contacts between India and the U.S.
1941 – There is one student enrolled at Harvard from India.
In 1911, President Charles William Eliot AB 1853, undertook an eight-month trip through various countries in Asia on behalf of the Carnegie Peace Foundation. He investigated public opinion on the matter of international peace.
Charles Lanman, who began at Harvard in 1880, was the first to preside over the department of Indo-Iranian Languages, as the Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies is now called.
Sanskrit was first taught at Harvard in 1872, when James Bradstreet Greenough, a Latin grammarian, began offering courses in Sanskrit and comparative philology as Latin electives.