ABSTRACT
The Nehru era from 1947 to 1964 is considered the best phase in the history of American philanthropic engagement in India. ‘The Rockefeller as well as Ford Foundation enjoyed unbridled freedom of action in India’. They were closely involved in India’s economic planning, urban and community development programmes as well as the health and education sectors. The ease with which American soft power moved in India is seen in the way the CIA-funded Asia Foundation gained backdoor entry into Indian universities. Besides selling the American Dream, these foundations targeted the higher education in India to build ‘propaganda and public consent’. Through protracted investments in the Indian education sector, the American foundations built an “epistemic community” among the Indian elites who shared both the American dislike for communism and their zeal to contain it. This chapter uses archival sources to reveal the debates within the Indian establishment on the penetration of Indian polity by American philanthropic foundations engaged in establishing American hegemony.
