This project seeks to foster the emerging field of India China Studies by supporting a new generation of scholar-leaders who are committed to producing innovative research, teaching, and course development. It builds on several prior projects of the India China Institute, the India China Leadership Fellows program, the India China Knowledge and Capacity Building Initiative, and the Emerging Scholars Initiative. 

This initiative involves partnerships among universities and research institutes in India and China, including Peking University and Jawaharlal Nehru University. These efforts are linked with the creation of new academic courses around a common research and teaching agenda: Prosperity and Inequality in India and China. ICI has partnered with The New School’s Global Studies program to offer this course in 2017 and 2018. A group of former ICI Fellows from India and China have been important partners in helping ICI develop the new curriculum for universities in India and China.

CISLI focuses on supporting scholars from underrepresented backgrounds as well as underrepresented fields of study, and aims to ensure participants have equal access and opportunities in global academic networks. ICI is committed to research, teaching, and policy engagement that advances social justice and sustainable development, strengthens new scholarly networks, and supports interdisciplinary research that can promote better critical scholarship on inequality and prosperity.

Background: Prosperity and Inequality in India and China

Over the last fifty years, India and China have experienced historically unprecedented economic growth, accompanied by daunting new forms of inequality. While billions of people were (and are) pulled out of poverty, the World Bank in 2011 estimated that more than 1.5 billion people in India and China earned less than US$2 a day. Included in this dystopian reality are the very wealthy, a class growing at staggering rates, and at the same time, an emerging middle class trapped between its aspirations to new heights and anxiety about  job security, housing crises, and turbulent stock markets. 

The trends of prosperity and inequality in India and China have their roots in late 20th century economic policies. Inequalities in both countries have fueled regional disparities and led to a massive influx of rural populations moving into rapidly expanding urban centers. 

While these two countries have significantly different strategies, circumstances, cultures, and political contexts, the sheer scale of their transformations means that their responses to prosperity and inequality will impact how the world thinks about economic and social change in the years ahead.

Debates on strategies to reduce poverty are wide ranging and inconclusive. The ICI initiative seeks to investigate the relation between prosperity and inequality at all levels of society, leading to a deeper understanding of the dynamics created by rapid economic and social change in India and China. Through interdisciplinary research, scholars will address the measures necessary for all members of society to prosper, and how these societies are responding to the challenges of economic growth in such diverse realms as policy governance, social theory, culture, and art. 

CISLI Final Conference

The China India Scholar Leaders conference was held on March 18 and 19, 2021 where fellows presented their research findings from their more than two years program. Presentations ranged from economic inequality in India to biometric payment systems in China to education and gender inequality in both countries. Please click here to see the paper titles and abstracts.

CISLI Final Seminar Packet 2021

CISLI Seminar Powerpoint 2021