Cold War to Brand Wars: Global Processes, Developmental Visions, and Indian Higher Education

Abstract

“Cold War to Brand Wars” discusses global processes, developmental visions, and Indian higher education. Modern and contemporary India’s development and ideas of development are inextricably linked to the policies set in motion during British colonial rule. Indian elites’ conception of development was heavily influenced by their exposure to development in Britain and in Western Europe. The pattern of the Indian mind to fashion development along Western lines took a new step forward with independence. Post-1947 India was faced with a bipolar world of superpower rivalry between the USA and the USSR. The Cold War impacted India’s development, its higher education, and the policy environment. The decades since 1990 have seen the impact of globalization and a new era of world politics. This chapter discusses the impact of global processes on Indian development and higher education policy and narrates the shifts in India’s developmental visions. The selective use of science by Indian policy planners, a specific view of the West within dominant Indian opinion and a particular understanding of development, has impacted India’s policy in higher education. The author argues that a narrow and elite-serving view of development has had limiting impact on the growth and flowering of Indian higher education and society.