SWEDISH SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES NETWORK

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Visit to the Omeo Kumar Das Institute of Social Change and Develeopment (OKD), Guwahati, Thursday 24 November 2005

Web page: http://www.okd.in

Omeo Kumar Das was a famous freedom fighter and educationist of Assam, born in 1895. The Institute was founded in 1989, and got the name of OKD Institute of Social Change and Development at the time of the birth centenary of OKD in 1995. It is one of the 27 prestigeous institutions all over India that are funded by the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR).
It is still a small institute, most of the staff joined only in 1999, when proper funding came to the Institute. At present there are eight in the faculty, consisting of economists, political scientists, education researchers, cultural geographers and historians. The institute is now very active in publishing research reports, books and articles. It also has its own journal: Social Change and Development, started in 2003. Lately it has also started a Centre for Northeast India, South and Southeast Asia Studies, funded by Ford Foundation. From the latter source OKD has also got funds to create an endowed Chair entitled Professor of Peace Studies.
The Director of OKD, Prof. Abu Nasar Saied Ahmed (photo to the left), a political scientist from Dibrugarh University, had organised a meeting for us with about 20 faculty members and PhD students at the Institute.

Same agenda as at Guwahati University

It turned out that the research at OKD has about the same priorities and thrust as Gauhati University, with the difference that research can be more focussed and integrated at a special full time research institute like this despite its smallness and paucity of funds.
Ethnicity figures high, of course. Here are studies of immigrant populations, militancy, women as peace makers in Nagaland, internal displacement of people in western Assam, etc.
Regional relations are also prominent as a study area, extending from the relations between the countries neighbouring the North East (for example, Indo-Myanmar relations) to the whole of South Asia and the SAARC community.
Livelihood, rural development and commercialisation are popular topics as are education, health, and information technology.

Prof. Partha S. Ghosh, South Asian comparative studies, and Prof. Indranee Dutta, working with health and education.

We had a lively discussion of some of these areas of research and discovered that there are several opportunities for cooperation with Swedish and Nordic scholars. Be sure that you will see OKD again in SASNET’s Internet Gateway fairly soon.

Persons we met and interacted with:
• Abu Nasar Saied Ahmed, Professor and Director
• Indranee Dutta, Prof., working with health and education
• Partha S. Ghosh, Visiting Prof., South Asian comparative studies
• Saswati Choudhury, Lecturer, economics, banking, rural development, regional studies
• Joydeep Baruah, Lecturer, economics, econometrics, regional development, policy analysis
• Bhupen Sarmah, Reader, agrarian relations, ethnicity and autonomy, devolution of power
• Kalyan Das, Lecturer, regional development, labour economics
• Aruna Dutta, Peace Studies