A Conversation with Christophe Jaffrelot

In Fall 2011, two eminent political scientists of South Asia came together to co-teach a novel comparative course on India and Pakistan.  Professor Christophe Jaffrelot, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for International Studies and Research, in Paris, France, and Yale’s Steven Wilkinson, Nilekani Professor of India and South Asian Studies and Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, jointly taught the course Political Science 461, India and Pakistan: Democracy, Conflict and Development. 

Bringing together Professor Jaffrelot’s research on Hindu nationalism, caste politics and identity issues in Pakistan with Professor Wilkinson’s scholarship on ethnic violence, electoral politics, and clientelism, students benefited from both the individual expertise of these two scholars and the intellectual synergy produced through co-teaching.  During his time in New Haven, Professor Jaffrelot shared his experience of co-teaching in the US with the South Asian Studies Council.

What does co-teaching a course such as Political Science 461 bring to the experience of both teaching and learning?
First I’m very fortunate to teach with someone whom I’ve known for a long time, whose scholarship I admire and from whom, therefore, I learn a lot. Second, I had already shared a course on contemporary India with Tariq Thachil, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale who also has regional expertise in South Asia, and I enjoyed it a great deal.  I have found the experience of co-teaching very rich. Not only do I learn by working with a colleague to guide students, mark essays together and so on, but, it also provides me with a unique opportunity to interact with another scholar, who will comment on my ideas and present his own. Within the setting of a co-taught course it is possible to have conversations, discussions and debates with a fellow scholar that would not be necessarily possible in a bilateral conversation outside class. The students also like the fact that they are not always facing the same person, but benefit from the insights and complementarity of two scholars who do not necessarily agree on everything. The experience of co-teaching at Yale and in the United States has led me to believe that we should all teach with someone else!  At Sciences Po in Paris and at King’s College London, I now co-teach most of my six courses, on Democracy in India, Indian Cities, India and the World, Colonial India, Pakistan and Muslims in India.  This year, I am also teaching a course at King’s College, London, with Sunil Khilnani.  In fact, I now only teach one course alone!

In teaching a course about Democracy, Conflict and Development in India and Pakistan, what are your goals and objectives?
My main objectives as a teacher are always the same: to share what I know with students who are interested in learning and to help them to develop not only an intellectual knowledge and understanding, but also a critical mind as well as some knowledge of research methods.
In a course such as Political Science 461, Indians and Pakistanis share a classroom and so there is always an additional objective, nolens volens: these two peoples have so much more in common than they think.  One of the inevitable and implicit goals of the course, therefore, is to foster greater open-mindedness about neighbors, their shared histories and cultures.  In the end, we are probably the last academics who these students will engage with about the politics of their country, or at least a country they are interested in, before they graduate. This gives us, as teachers, an additional role in shaping the ways in which the future citizens of India, Pakistan as well as other countries think about some of the most pressing issues facing the South Asian region.

What do you find distinctive about teaching in the United States?
I have been fortunate to teach in some of the best American universities – Yale, Columbia, Princeton, Johns Hopkins.  Until recently, teaching in France was not terribly professionalized, there was no such thing as a syllabus or readings for instance.  Columbia first, a few years ago, initiated me into a more professional approach to teaching.

One of the challenges for me, teaching in a US context, is to consider the different backgrounds of students enrolled in the class.  In the US, I have found that my classes have a much larger proportion of students who hail from the South Asian region.  So, I have to be careful not to make the course too basic, since many of these students already have first-hand knowledge and experience of South Asia.  At the same time, I needed to ensure that I do not avoid discussing sensitive or controversial issues such as corruption, the communalization of politics, and caste politics.  I have learned that by presenting ideas that are empirically grounded, students will typically engage in constructive discussions.

What methodological approach do you use to study issues such as caste politics or Hindu nationalism?
In my research, I combine the use of qualitative and quantitative methods.  American political science has been weighted more toward quantitative approaches, and influenced by the legacy of rational choice theory.  I appreciate the contribution of such an approach, not only because it makes comparisons easier, but also because it enhances our understanding of political societies and dynamics. I have built several data bases myself - regarding the social profile of the Indian Members of Parliament for instance. And that has enabled me to show that lower castes politicians were taking over power: you can only make such a point on the basis of aggregates.

But I certainly do not give an upper hand to this quantitative, survey-like technique and when I use it, I try not to divorce it from field work.  How can you design a questionnaire if you do not know the words people use first? How can you aggregate social categories if you do not know how people look at themselves in society first?  One must do fieldwork first to understand the concepts and categories that are meaningful in society before designing a survey.

Last but not least, quantitative methods do not allow us to respond to a large range of questions. And if we resign ourselves to deal with a limited number of issues - those for which quantitative methods can offer an answer - then we undermine the whole project of social sciences.

With Steven, in our class, we present a balanced approach which exemplifies the complementarity of both methods. I hope departments of political science will continue to make such efforts possible in the future too.