The first discussion session will be held on Thursday February 4.  You should come prepared with at least TWO pages of TYPED notes for the discussion.   The format for the notes needs to be in form of a clearly articulate ANSWER to the questions posed to you, followed by EVIDENCE.  You may point to page and paragraph numbers of class texts when indicating the evidence.  Discussion notes do not have to be formally written, and will be evaluated for content and not style.  You may use abbreviations and write these up in "note form" as long as you address the theme and subsidiary questions outlined below.  Please come prepared with TWO copies of your notes on the discussion topics.  You will hand one copy of that to me, and use the other to participate in the discussion.

The discussion is meant as a forum where you can present your own INFORMED opinion about the subject you study.  It requires thinking independently about the subject.  You will not find the ANSWERS for the discussion theme or questions in your textbook or notes, only the EVIDENCE, that YOU have to use to formulate your OWN arguments about the subject. There are no RIGHT or WRONG answers in history, only more or less persuasive arguments.  However, no argument can be persuasive unless it is based on adequate factual evidence.

MAIN THEME FOR DISCUSSION: Overview of the Political History of India, 1947-99

QUESTIONS

1.  What do perceive as the major changes in the policies adopted by three generations of Nehrus and Gandhis who ruled over India between 1947 and 1991?  To what extent can the changes be attributed to factors of personality?  What other factors may or did impact in their policy decisions?

2.  What do you see as the major achievements of the Indian governments since 1947?  What have been the most important failures?

3.  Did the dominance of a single political party at the Center between 1947 and 1977 work to the benefit of the people of India?  Why or why not?

4.  Which social groups would you say have been the most marginalized or oppressed since independence in 1947?  Why?

5.  Do you see a consistency in India's relations with the rest of the world, particularly the United States, since 1947?  What could account for this consistency, or indeed for differences, in India's foreign policy over this period?

*6.  What, in your opinion, accounts for the rise of religious separatist/ nationalist/fundamentalist politics in India over the last two decades?

* Feel free to speculate or indeed bring in information from sources other than those you have read for the course to answer this question.