L'institut Shastri

Shastri News - September 2009

Shastri Institute Founder receives Lifetime Achievement Award

Michael Brecher, who holds the R.B. Angus Chair of Political Science at McGill University, received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Political Science Association (Conflict Processes) at its annual conference on September 4, 2009. Brecher’s lifetime of achievements includes almost six decades as a professor at McGill University where he has developed a world-renowned body of work on International Crises.

“Michael Brecher is a towering figure in international relations research,” says Professor John A. Vasquez who presented Brecher’s award. “He is read throughout the world, and he is one of the most influential scholars in the post-World War II era.”

Prof. Brecher has served as Director, and founder, of the International Crisis Behaviour Project, based at McGill University, since its launch in 1975. This innovative, collaborative project has drawn together researchers from across the globe to analyze and understand international crises and conflicts, spawning more than a dozen books and many journal articles.

Of course, we will always remember Prof. Brecher for founding the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute. While engaged in research in India in 1965, with his wife, Eva, he met with senior ministers of the Government of India and Canada’s then-High Commissioner to India, Roland Michener, later Governor-General of Canada. They approved the idea of an institute dedicated to enhancing mutual understanding and scholarly exchange. “I was still in India on my sabbatical, in June 1965, when Prime Minister Shastri made his announcement during his Convocation Address at McGill University supporting the creation of such an institute,” Brecher remembers. While the Prime Minister did not live to see the Institute’s birth, he was a key proponent of Brecher’s ideas, which is why Brecher suggested founding the Institute in his name.

One of Prof. Brecher’s first research loves was the national movement for India’s independence and India’s foreign and domestic policies during its formative period. He authored a political biography of Nehru (Oxford 1959) which won the Watumull Prize of the American Historical Association for “the book published in the preceding two years that made the greatest contribution to America’s understanding of India.” In 2009 we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the book’s publication.

Michael Brecher’s passion and ingenuity have substantially strengthened the academic and political relationship between India and Canada. For that we are truly grateful. Nearly 3,000 faculty, students, artists, librarians, and journalists have received funding from the Shastri Institute thanks to his initiative.

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