Nehru Chinthana Kendra

Nehru Study Centre, Mangalore University was established during the year 2017 on the financial assistance of Karnataka Government. It is established to evolve a nuanced and critical perspective on the broad spectrum of ideas associated with Indian Democracy by invoking Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and his concerns. Such an endeavor is crucial in the contemporary context of Indian Social and political life. The Centre wishes to identify and academically engage with diverse aspects of contemporary India in order to provide analytical and normative perspectives on them.

The following are the stated broad objective outlines of the centre.

1. The centre is an academic platform to engage with diverse intellectual traditions of modern India. Invariably, it intends to encompass and include all strands of thought in it.
2.  The centre intends to invoke and organize public debates and discussions on a variety of issues and concerns that contemporary India confronts today. This will enable in evolving useful conceptual frameworks to initiate popular action.
3. The centre, through its activities, wishes to evolve critical perspectives on a variety of normative issues such as nationalism, democracy, secularism, pluralism and so on.
4. The centre as an academic body concentrates its attention primarily on the teaching fraternity and student community and invoke among them humanitarian and democratic concerns. However, it is also a public institution and therefore, is aware of its public sphere responsibilities. Hence, it will evolve such activities and programmes to reach out to popular imagination.
5. The centre encourages serious academic engagements with local traditions, every day practices and rituals in order to highlight democratic and humanitarian values in them.

Future Plans:

• Dialogue on Democracy

The centre will organize a series of lecture programmes on different aspects of Democracy under the title Democracy Dialogue. These lectures are organized in the university campus and other affiliated colleges. The lecture series will be in a mode enabling teachers and students to evolve critical perspectives on democracy.

• Workshop on Democratic Political Leadership

The centre will organize workshops in and around Mangalore University involving students and youth. These workshops will help them in developing critical perspectives on politics which in turn enable them to acquire capabilities for active citizenship and interventionist political participation and leadership.

• Regional, National and International Seminars      

The center will organize seminars (Regional, National and International) on Nehru and his concerns in order to recast them in the contemporary context of the nation and the world.

• Research Projects (Short -term and long-term)

The centre will encourage theoretical and empirically grounded research projects. These research projects would address problems and issues concerning caste, communal, religious, regional and linguistic cleavages and differences resulting in varying kinds of disparities and inequalities. These projects will also pursue their research with clearly specified conceptual framework highlighting the significant values such as democracy, secularism, diversity and pluralism.

• Culturally anchored Studies

The centre will initiate culturally anchored studies on traditions, every day practices and rituals of the region in order to tease out and highlight the democratic and humanitarian content in them.

• Archive and Specialized library

Develop a specialized library and archive on freedom movement, Constituent Assembly debates and traditions of Indian Political Philosophy.

• Publications
• The centre will publish a monograph on the long term perspective and programmes of the centre at the earliest.
• The centre will edit and publish books on political theory, modern Indian political philosophy and democratic politics in India that are useful for teachers, students and researchers. This could mean a variety of publications including translations on a broad spectrum of issues.