Forty Years of
Fulbright in India
By MEENA SANYAL
Among the celebrations for the 40th anniversary of the Fulbright program in India is the release of a commemorative publication incorporating reminiscences of a number of Indian participants. SPAN presents excerpts.
S
ince 1950, the United States Educational Foundation in India (USEFI) has grown into an important focus for scholarly exchange between the United States and India, forging special bonds of cooperation, friendship and understanding between the peoples of our two nations. USEFI was established to administer
the Fulbright program in India on February 2, 1950, with the signing of an agreement by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and U.S. Ambassador Loy W. Henderson. The program’s primary goal is the promotion of “mutual understanding between the peoples of the United States of America and India by a wider exchange of knowledge and professional talents through educational
Girish Karnad with his family.
20 EDITION 1 2022
contacts.” The success of the Foundation in its early years was due immeasurably to the efforts of its first director, the legendary Olive Reddick. A pioneer in the development of the lndo-U.S. exchange program, Reddick was associated with numerous educational and scholarly initiatives, including the creation of the American Studies Research Centre in Hyderabad in 1964. She was no stranger to India when she arrived here to pick up the reins of the Foundation in 1951. She had taught economics at Isabella Thoburn College in Lucknow in the early 1920s and again in the late 1930s. She had also worked with the U.S. State Department in the mid-1940s, part of the time in India stationed in New Delhi. Thus when she came to the Foundation she had firsthand knowledge of India, direct association with college classrooms and extensive administrative experience. The long line of distinguished directors has continued from Reddick to the current director Sharada Nayak. In 1973 Charles Boewe, who served as the director for two years, handed over charge to the first Indian director C.S. Ramakrishnan, describing it as “an act long overdue.” “My most notable accomplishment at USEFI,” noted Boewe, “was to preside over the transfer of the Foundation to capable Indian
