Bajpai Joins Brookings Institution

Kanti Prasad Bajpai, Associate Professor of Disarmament Studies at the Centre for International Politics, Organization and Disarmament at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, began work July 1 as a Visiting Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution.

Bajpai, who was chairman of the Centre from 1997-1998, is an expert on a range of policy issues, including international relations theory, international security, regional cooperation in South Asia, and Indian security and foreign policy.

While at Brookings, Bajpai will conduct research on how India views internal security, deals with its neighbors, especially Pakistan, and interacts with the United States and China. He will be affiliated with the Brookings South Asia Project, which was established in 1998 to convene public discussions and meetings focusing on contemporary issues in South Asia, including India’s emergence as a major power. One issue on the Project’s agenda is an assessment of American efforts to resolve or ameliorate the major conflicts of South Asia, particularly those involving India and Pakistan. It has conducted a series of seminars and workshops on the issue of regional nuclear proliferation.

At the South Asia Project, Bajpai will join senior fellow and project director Stephen P. Cohen and General Jehangir Karamat, a visiting fellow and former chairman of the Pakistani Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee.

Prior to joining Jawaharlal Nehru University, Bajpai taught at the Maharajah Sayajirao University of Baroda and was a visiting scholar at Wesleyan University, Columbia University, and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. From 1993-94, he was Resident Fellow at the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies in New Delhi. He has published numerous works, including South Asia After the Cold War: International Perspectives, Securing India: Strategic Thought and Practice, and Engaged Democracies: India-U.S. Relations in the 21st Century, and is currently writing two books: one on nuclear weapons and India’s security and another on India’s grand strategy from 1947-1997.

Kanti Bajpai will be at the Brookings Institution through February 2001.