Prof. V P Dutta, was one of the pioneers and stalwarts of Chinese studies in India. Prof. Dutta was born on 24th June 1925 in West Punjab, now part of Pakistan. He graduated in English literature from Lahore University and pursued a post-graduation in International Relations at Stanford University. He did PhD on China’s 1911 Republican Revolution at Indian School of International Studies, Sapru House, New Delhi and post-doctoral studies at Harvard University.
In 1957, he visited China, along with Prof. Gargi Dutt, as a part of a cultural exchange program and studied Chinese language at Beijing University. After his return from China, he joined Indian School of International Studies as a faculty. Later he joined Department of History, University of Delhi as a professor and was instrumental in setting up the Center for Chinese Studies at Delhi University in 1964 and served as Head of the Center, which subsequently came to be known as the Department of East Asian Studies in 2001.
Prof. VP Dutt’s seminal works include India's Foreign Policy in a Changing World, India’s Foreign Policy, India and China: The Past and the Future, The Emergency in India: Background and Rationale, China’s Foreign Policy: 1958-62, China and the World. He became Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Delhi University and was nominated twice as a Member of the Rajya Sabha, Parliament of India. He was a distinguished fellow at the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses, New Delhi.
During his long and eventful career, in teaching and research, he had not only contributed significantly to the Chinese scholarship, but he had also mentored a number of Indian scholars on China. He is fondly remembered by his students as affable and accessible.
V P Dutt Memorial Lecture