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Amitabh Mattoo
Amitabh Mattoo (born 26 June 1962, Srinagar) is an Indian academic, political scientist, public intellectual and writer specialising in international relations, political science, and contemporary history. He was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India in 2009 while serving as the Vice Chancellor of the University of Jammu. He is the Dean of the School of International Studies, Chair and a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, honorary professor of international relations at the University of Melbourne, and a Distinguished Fellow of the Australia India Institute. He concurrently holds the inaugural Chair of Excellence at the Defence Services Staff College at Wellington, Nilgiris. He was the Vice Chancellor of the University of Jammu from 2002 to 2008 (when appointed, he was the youngest to serve as a Vice Chancellor of a public university in the history of independent India). He served as a cabinet-ranked Advisor to the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir from 2015 to 2018. One of the few public intellectuals to bridge the gap between academia and policy, he has influenced policy making on nuclear issues, Jammu and Kashmir and the India-Pakistan conflict. His role in strengthening India’s relations with Australia have also been publicly acclaimed.
Following the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution of India, Mattoo offered a political roadmap detailing his vision for securing the future of Jammu and Kashmir. He has been an advocate of multiculturalism and of reconciliation between Kashmiri Pandits and Kashmiri Muslims.
A son of the academic and writer Neerja Mattoo and the forester and civil servant Rajendra Kumar Mattoo, Amitabh received his early education at the Burn Hall School in Srinagar before attending the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. He married Ajita, a member of the 1987 batch of the Indian Railway Accounts Service. He qualified for the Indian Police Service in 1987 and the Indian Administrative Services (IAS) in 1988 through the Combined Civil Services Examination, but pursued a career in academics. He went on to earn a PhD in International Relations from the University of Oxford, writing a history of the campaign for nuclear disarmament. He describes the ten days of youth that he spent in Tihar jail as part of student protests at JNU as a 'life-shaping experience'.[citation needed]
Mattoo comes from the Kashmiri Pandit family of Srinagar. Before the land reforms in Jammu and Kashmir, his family consisted of some of the region's feudal landlords, aristocrats, and administrators. Examining the recent social history of his own ethnic group, Mattoo remarks:
Indeed, the intriguing history of the Kashmiri Pandit community is an anomaly in contemporary times that has privileged stories of ideological clashes, confronting cultures and competing nationalisms. Where else would you find an educated (with 100% literacy), mostly professional, materially successful, religiously liberal, politically flexible, totally non-violent, microscopic minority inhabiting one of the most conflicted and contested parts of the country? They lived, in retrospect, fairy-tale lives, and that charmed life turned into a nightmare in the 1990s.
Mattoo is Deputy Chair of the Academic Advisory Board of the German Institute for Global and Area Studies. He was the founding CEO of the Australia India Institute at the University of Melbourne and served as Chairman of the governing board of Miranda House, University of Delhi, the highest-ranked women's college in India; earlier, he had served as Chair of Kirori Mal College. Mattoo was among the few non-alumni ever appointed to Chair governing bodies of colleges affiliated with Delhi University. He has also been a member of the Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing.
Mattoo has been a visiting professor at Stanford University, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.[citation needed] He has been Chairperson of the Centre for International Politics, Organization and Disarmament at Jawaharlal Nehru University as well as Founding Director and CEO of the Australia India Institute, University of Melbourne and a member of the National Knowledge Commission, a high-level advisory group to the Prime Minister of India. He has also been a member of the advisory board of India's National Security Council, a member of the Indian Prime Minister's Task Force on Global Strategic Developments, on the executive committee and governing council of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, and a member of the Indian Prime Minister's High-Level Group on Nuclear Disarmament.[citation needed] He also co-chaired the Knowledge Initiative with the Education Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. The Knowledge Initiative was established by the state government to recommend interventions in schools, colleges, and institutions of higher learning to make the education system socially relevant and globally competitive.[citation needed]
Mattoo has published books on India's nuclear policy and India-Pakistan relations and has written on Kashmir. Mattoo has published ten books and more than 100 research articles (including in journals like Survival and Asian Survey). He regularly writes for Indian English-language newspapers such as The Telegraph and The Hindu, and has been a liberally inclined political commentator on national television.
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Amitabh Mattoo
Amitabh Mattoo (born 26 June 1962, Srinagar) is an Indian academic, political scientist, public intellectual and writer specialising in international relations, political science, and contemporary history. He was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India in 2009 while serving as the Vice Chancellor of the University of Jammu. He is the Dean of the School of International Studies, Chair and a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, honorary professor of international relations at the University of Melbourne, and a Distinguished Fellow of the Australia India Institute. He concurrently holds the inaugural Chair of Excellence at the Defence Services Staff College at Wellington, Nilgiris. He was the Vice Chancellor of the University of Jammu from 2002 to 2008 (when appointed, he was the youngest to serve as a Vice Chancellor of a public university in the history of independent India). He served as a cabinet-ranked Advisor to the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir from 2015 to 2018. One of the few public intellectuals to bridge the gap between academia and policy, he has influenced policy making on nuclear issues, Jammu and Kashmir and the India-Pakistan conflict. His role in strengthening India’s relations with Australia have also been publicly acclaimed.
Following the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution of India, Mattoo offered a political roadmap detailing his vision for securing the future of Jammu and Kashmir. He has been an advocate of multiculturalism and of reconciliation between Kashmiri Pandits and Kashmiri Muslims.
A son of the academic and writer Neerja Mattoo and the forester and civil servant Rajendra Kumar Mattoo, Amitabh received his early education at the Burn Hall School in Srinagar before attending the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. He married Ajita, a member of the 1987 batch of the Indian Railway Accounts Service. He qualified for the Indian Police Service in 1987 and the Indian Administrative Services (IAS) in 1988 through the Combined Civil Services Examination, but pursued a career in academics. He went on to earn a PhD in International Relations from the University of Oxford, writing a history of the campaign for nuclear disarmament. He describes the ten days of youth that he spent in Tihar jail as part of student protests at JNU as a 'life-shaping experience'.[citation needed]
Mattoo comes from the Kashmiri Pandit family of Srinagar. Before the land reforms in Jammu and Kashmir, his family consisted of some of the region's feudal landlords, aristocrats, and administrators. Examining the recent social history of his own ethnic group, Mattoo remarks:
Indeed, the intriguing history of the Kashmiri Pandit community is an anomaly in contemporary times that has privileged stories of ideological clashes, confronting cultures and competing nationalisms. Where else would you find an educated (with 100% literacy), mostly professional, materially successful, religiously liberal, politically flexible, totally non-violent, microscopic minority inhabiting one of the most conflicted and contested parts of the country? They lived, in retrospect, fairy-tale lives, and that charmed life turned into a nightmare in the 1990s.
Mattoo is Deputy Chair of the Academic Advisory Board of the German Institute for Global and Area Studies. He was the founding CEO of the Australia India Institute at the University of Melbourne and served as Chairman of the governing board of Miranda House, University of Delhi, the highest-ranked women's college in India; earlier, he had served as Chair of Kirori Mal College. Mattoo was among the few non-alumni ever appointed to Chair governing bodies of colleges affiliated with Delhi University. He has also been a member of the Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing.
Mattoo has been a visiting professor at Stanford University, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.[citation needed] He has been Chairperson of the Centre for International Politics, Organization and Disarmament at Jawaharlal Nehru University as well as Founding Director and CEO of the Australia India Institute, University of Melbourne and a member of the National Knowledge Commission, a high-level advisory group to the Prime Minister of India. He has also been a member of the advisory board of India's National Security Council, a member of the Indian Prime Minister's Task Force on Global Strategic Developments, on the executive committee and governing council of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, and a member of the Indian Prime Minister's High-Level Group on Nuclear Disarmament.[citation needed] He also co-chaired the Knowledge Initiative with the Education Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. The Knowledge Initiative was established by the state government to recommend interventions in schools, colleges, and institutions of higher learning to make the education system socially relevant and globally competitive.[citation needed]
Mattoo has published books on India's nuclear policy and India-Pakistan relations and has written on Kashmir. Mattoo has published ten books and more than 100 research articles (including in journals like Survival and Asian Survey). He regularly writes for Indian English-language newspapers such as The Telegraph and The Hindu, and has been a liberally inclined political commentator on national television.
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