Janaki Bakhle

If you have the slightest interest in History, South Asian, or Political History, Gandhi's India with Professor Bakhle is the course to take. This is the most invigorating course I've taken at Columbia so far, and Professor Baklhle spurs student interest like a pro. Every lecture is fast paced and packed with material, so it's not an easy challenge, but is still overall worthwhile. Professor Bakhle is relentless in delivering the extremely complicated history of the formation of modern India; there's never a dull moment in class. Be warned, the class is all the way at 120th and Broadway, and you can't afford to come in late, lest you lose important information. Professor Bakhle is strict as well about cell phone and computer use as well, but you wouldn't want those distractions compared the amazing experience you'll have in class.

The main problem with Professor Bakhle is that she has not yet figured out how to structure her class so that the material comes across clearly. She struggled from the very beginning to find an effective way to teach the class. First she tried to have students run each class discussion, then slowly did away with that and by the end of the semester, was simply lecturing from her notes for the majority of the class time. She did somehow get across the main points of each text, I believe, but it was done so in a very convaluted, roundabout, and incomplete manner. If she had a personal intrest in one aspect of a particular piece, she would focus solely on it and neglect to discuss other major aspects of the work. Overall, her teaching style is not conducive to a class such as CC. With such a broad and in-depth study of philosophy, clarity is key and Professor Bakhle rarely accepted this. To top it off, she refused to give the class any idea about the format or content of the final exam and then proceeded to include challenging quote identifications, key terms that were barely mentioned in class, and broad, complex essay prompts to which the response could not exceed one page. To sum it up: I would keep searching.....

Professor Bakhle is the most engaging speaker I have ever encountered, and that includes years of experience in competitive oratorical and debate competitions. She is naturally an amazing speaker. Her lectures are fierce and brilliant. You simply do not take your eyes off of her when she is speaking. Granted, she is a bit theatrical--she struts across the stage before making an important statement--but that only makes things more interesting. Every single lecture in the Topics course was packed with information. You were inundated with insanely interesting facts, theories, themes, etc etc. I absolutely loved it. I couldn't get enough of watching Bakhle. I learned so much about Indian history in half a semester that I probably know more than all of my Indian friends. I don't think this course will be offered again, but you would be foolish not to at least sit in on a lecture by Prof Bakhle.

First, you do NOT need an extensive background in anything to take Prof. Bakhle's classes, especially if you take both topics and gandhi's india in sequence. I actually do have an above-average knowledge of south asian history simply by having taking courses in high school and I was sometimes frustrated by the fact that she gives us great readings (for example, key texts in subaltern studies, a very interesting school of s.asian historiography (which will be of immense importance to you if you have problems with nationalist and imperialist historiography) of which Partha Chatterjee, who teaches here, is a big member) but doesnt talk about them as much as facts and dates. Still, she is very willing to talk in office hours and speak to your specific level of knowledge. Second, I too will warn you that she really is a bitch on wheels if your cellphone goes off or if you come late. The origin of this idiosyncrasy is interesting in its own right: As on of Edward Said's students she has absorbed his classroom style which I hear was very no bullshit. Last, she tries hard to be a teacher (more than just a lecturer) even in a big class and this really comes through in office hours if you care to go. Coda: Take this class if your historical interest is strong enough so that you dont mind hearing the conventional narrative of South Asian history with minor twists here and there in lectur…

I took this course with only slight pause due to old CULPA reviews, and I don't regret it at all. Professor Bakhle is a fantastic lecturer with a thorough insight into her subject. Moreover, she did an excellent job of contextualizing an extremely broad overview of South Asian history. While we covered a lot of material, I found that it was generally manageable to grasp what was going on and understand the narrative as it was presented. Professor Bakhle also made a tremendous effort to expand the course beyond Gandhi. We read numerous different opinions, and were presented with a class that put Gandhi in conversation with his contemporaries-- and allowed us to understand him within that context. Given that we had such a short amount of time in class and a large amount of material to cover, we actually read about a remarkable variety of the movements and disagreements that dotted Indian history from pre-colonial and briefly, post-colonial times. Class had two TA's. I had Divya, who was great at dissecting and making sometimes dense readings understandable.

Professor Bakhle is by far the most engaging professor I have ever experienced. She is simply the best out there. Take any class she offers when she comes back in the fall of 2006!

Prof. Bakhle is amazing. She is an incredibly enthusiastic and engaging lecturer, genuine person, and critical in her approach to the course and its material. This course is not a history course, per se; rather, the course focuses on several themes (nationalism, modernization, religion, revolution, gender issues, etc) and then puts each theme into critical discourse. You really cannot ask for more from a List A major cultures. Bakhle only teaches half of the course and then Prof. Massad takes over. Bakhle's lectures were always packed, while Massad's were half empty. You've probably heard that Bakhle is a hardass. This is true; however, all she asks is that you show up on time to lecture and not fall asleep or have Jay Z's "Big Pimpin'" ringtone blast throughout the lecture hall. But if her lectures themselves aren't enough to keep you up, you shouldn't be there in the first place. This course is a must-take.

What a great class this was! There's a lot of information, a ton of reading every week, and the exams aren't easy. But Professor Bakhle is a terrific lecturer. I don't understand why people think she's a "bitch on wheels" as one reviewer said below. She commands the classroom but not in a bitchy way at all. The TA's are very intelligent, approachable, and professional. Mine was Omar Sarwar. He started out somewhat lacking in confidence but a few weeks into the semester he had us engaged and the fifty minutes of discussion section seemed to fly by. He's also hot. Just thought I'd add that! I highly recommend this class to anyone interested in the history of South Asia.

It just does not get any better than Janaki Bakhle. After three years of taking nearly all lit and philosophy classes, she is the best lecturer I have had, and frankly its not even close (ok, Mark Taylor is pretty close). I'm not making this up: The first time she ever paused or said "um" when she was speaking was probably six weeks into the class. If I ever become phenomenally wealthy, I may attempt to pay Janaki Bakhle a ridiculous sum of money to just come and lecture to me all the time (about anything she wants). She is without a doubt the most academically sexy professor at Columbia, but she's not just all bluster and gusto, throwing these "sexy" terms around haphazardly. Its obvious that her lectures (they're works of art, really), are well thought-out, and they fit together perfectly. Yet she can lecture that way on more or less any topic. She just thinks faster, more logically, and with a wider scope than you ever thought possible. And although Bakhle can be a little intimidating, she's actually a very sweet woman who cares about her students. Its obvious that she really cares about her students, not because she coddles them, although she can be really nice and funny, baking cookies and talking about her kid's Barney cake; but rather because she really challenges them; I came into this class with a decent philosophy background, so sometimes I would get bored and not re…

Professor Bakhle is, to say the least, a formidable woman. Her lecture style is impeccable, delivering enormous amounts of information in a fashion easy to assimilate and remember. True, she's a bit of a hard-ass, and clearly takes herself pretty seriously (make sure your cell phone/computer is off before class starts, don't let yourself fall asleep, and don't be late). But she more than makes up with it with her engaging method of speaking and laser-like focus on her subject. That said, I felt there was a fair degree of bias on her part against what she labelled as "Hindu nationalist histories" (a concept that was never actually explained) or "imperialist" histories, and in favor of Muslims and the Mughal Empire in general. However, compared to the other professors in the department, she's a shining beacon of objectivity. Overall, an excellent professor.