Indian think tanks: a historical background

Part 2-https://onthinktanks.org/articles/indian-think-tanks-a-historical-background/

The rise of think tanks in India began in the 1930s. This section has been divided into different time periods in an effort to understand the history of the think tank sector and the challenges they might face going forward.

1930s to early 1950s

The establishment of think tanks can be traced to India’s pre-independence era. The first Indian think tank was the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics in Pune in 1930, and its main mission was to teach and conduct research in economics and politics. Subsequently, more think tanks were established and their missions widened to serve various issues ranging from education, health, and international relations, to name a few. The Rockefeller Foundation, for instance, set up offices in India to focus on medicine and public health. The Sir Doraji Tata Graduate School of Social Work (later renamed as the Tata Institute of Social Science (TISS)) was established in 1936 with a two-pronged aim: to address social work education and to undertake social research. The Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) was established close to the country’s independence as a think tank intended to study international relations and foreign affairs and bring visibility to India’s foreign relations.

The National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog (erstwhile Planning Commission) + is a governmental policy think tank founded on January 1, 2015. However, its history goes back to 1953, when the Planning Commission set up the Research Programmes Committee (RPC) to chart a robust research agenda. The committee consisted of leading social scientists and economists who helped design the government’s research agenda. As a result, most think tanks channelled their research agenda to economic growth and ensured that government policies were implemented effectively.

The primary task of these early research institutes was to bring clarity and information on economics and development issues. Most of these research institutes had a government representative on their Board to ensure that they could reach their intended audience: policy-makers.