The spadework for American Studies in India was done by Merle Curti and John Haynes Holmes, two American professors, who delivered lectures on American civilization and culture at various institutions in India in the late 1940s. The US Educational Foundation in India (USEFI), the United States Information Service (USIS), and the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations organized and funded many workshops and seminars on American topics in the 1950s. Several Indian universities started courses in American history, literature and political science. A few American professors taught these courses in the beginning. The American Studies Research Center (ASRC) in Hyderabad, established in 1964, gave strong support to American Studies programs for three decades through its library, grants, courses, seminars, workshops, and publications. Professional associations such as the Indian Association for American Studies, Indian History Congress, Indian Political Science Association, and All India English Teachers' Conference have also been promoting American Studies through their annual conferences and journals. However, there were serious concerns about the necessity and the propriety of the disproportionate importance given to this discipline. With the changed international political situation in the 1990s, globalization, and the emergence of new disciplines and theories, the academic priorities have also changed. The closure of the ASRC in 1998 and the waning interest in American Studies also led to a rethinking over a suitable approach to American Studies. Recontextualization, internationalization, and environmental approach are suggested as desirable alternatives. While the organizations and associations of the 1960s have withered, there is new hope in MELUS and in the attempts to reinvent American Studies in the global context.

Until India became free in 1947, the curricula in the universities were, for understandable reasons, heavily slanted towards British history, political institutions, and literature. In their idealistic zeal, the leaders of independent India looked to the United States, a former British colony, for inspiration. They found that they had common goals and ideals. In the prevailing atmosphere of newborn freedom, mutual respect and goodwill and in the post-war desire for reconstruction and reform, administrators and educators were eager to broaden the scope of education and get over the colonial hangover. That psychologically opportune moment was seized to introduce American subjects in Indian universities.

American history, in fact, was introduced much earlier in Lucknow University by V S Ram, who had earned a Ph.D. from Harvard. Far from appreciating his innovation and emulating his bold example, his colleagues conferred on him the dubious epithet `yankee Ram.' On the eve of Independence, the Watumull Foundation, (established by an Indian businessman settled in Hawaii), sponsored a lecture tour by Merle Curti, Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, to 21 universities and cultural centers in India. He spoke, among other topics, on the American Revolution, the development of nationalism, the Civil War, American democracy, technology, agriculture, and music (Curti, 1988). Encouraged by the overwhelming response to Curti's pathbreaking tour, the same Foundation sent John Haynes Holmes the next year. He was well-known as a person who explained and propagated Gandhi's ideas in the US. Hence, Holmes's lectures attracted large crowds wherever he went. Thus, Curti and Holmes did pioneering work for promoting an interest in the American history and institutions among the Indian intelligentsia.

American Studies in India, Retrospect and Prospect, US Educational Foundation in India, USEFI, United States Information Service, USIS,American Studies Research Center, ASRC, scholars and educators, colonial era, American Civilization.