The ‘Growth’ of India

10 October 2007

Professor Robin Jeffrey

The Sixth Annual Sir Leslie Melville Lecture

Ranging over a period from the 19th century until today, this lecture examines various aspects of India’s ‘growth’ including its population, its economic output, its media, its middle class, its spread into a globalised world and its level of political participation. Professor Jeffrey will analyse the tensions between a huge population and hugely unequal, but expanding, wealth in a time when India speaks unceasingly to itself, and to the rest of the world, in ways unthinkable at the time of independence in 1947. How might such immense political activity and social change unfold?

Broad Topics: Asia and the Pacific

Sub-topics: Policy & Political Science

Areas: University

Professor Robin Jeffrey first went to India in 1967 and taught for two years in a government high school. He did a D.Phil. in Indian history at Sussex University and was a research fellow at ANU from 1973-78. He taught at La Trobe University from 1979-2006. He has done research in both north and south India and on Indian newspapers and media. He is Dean of the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific.

Part of the 2007 Toyota-ANU Public Lecture Series