Vol. 32, Issue 2 - Spring 2009
WWS Mourns Passing of Smitu Kothari
Scholar-activist Smitu Kothari, a Visiting Lecturer at the Woodrow Wilson School intermittently between fall 1996 and spring 2007, passed away in Delhi, India on March 23. He was 58.
Kothari was one of the founders of Lokayan (Dialogue of the People) and Intercultural Resources, two centers in Delhi promoting exchange between non-party political formations and concerned scholars and other citizens from India and the rest of the world. Trained in physics, communications and sociology, he was involved in ecological, cultural and human rights issues striving to forge a global alternative that was socially and ecologically just. He was a visiting professor at Cornell and Princeton universities, and served as president of the International Group for Grassroots Initiatives. He also served on the board of the Bank Information Center.
Development-induced displacement, people’s governance, and social-environmental movements were some of his core concerns. He was also one of the driving forces behind the Independent People’s Tribunal on the World Bank Group in India held in 2007.
At the Woodrow Wilson School, he taught graduate seminars on Social Movements and Social Change, Environment and Development and Development Ethics; he also co-taught an undergraduate WWS seminar on Politics of the Indian Subcontinent.
In the U.S., he is survived by his daughter, Emma Kothari, who lives in Princeton Junction. A memorial service is tentatively planned in Princeton for early summer. Condolences may be posted at the website Celebrating Smitu Kothari.