Michael True Recognized with Lifetime Achievement Award in India

February, 2006 - Michael True, professor emeritus of English at Assumption, is certainly no stranger to India. Dr. True, a longtime peace activist and researcher, recently returned from his fourth stint in that country, where he was presented with a prestigious lifetime achievement award for his work in the field of peace studies.

The award was presented to Dr. True by the Jaipur Peace Foundation at the Asian Pacific Peace Research Association conference at the University of Rajasthan in Jaipur, India. Dr. True was honored for his “pioneering work in peace research and nonviolent studies.” The conference featured 350 participants from 10 countries and carried a theme of “Peacemaking 60 Years after World War II.” He gave a presentation at the conference that emphasized Gene Sharp’s major scholarship and research on nonviolence theory and strategy since Gandhi.

While in India, Dr. True also gave presentations on peace studies at D.M. Saraswati University, Ajmer and Punjab University, Chandigarh. He was invited to Punjab University by the regional Social Science Research Council, where he presented, “The Testimony and Spirituality of Peacemaking.”

In his “Letter from India,” Dr. True describes his trip as follows:

Of my four times in India since 1995, this one is the most difficult to describe, perhaps because of the wide range of experiences, the day-to-day adaptations and surprises amid multiple disparities in culture. I was conscious of being older and less adaptable, needing more time to assimilate the various encounters that characterize daily life in India. …Writing about the time, I kept wondering if it’s possible to understand anything as multifarious as my recent immersion in a segment of Indian culture.

…The prosperity of India noted by American columnists is evident in the new metro in Delhi, extensive construction, broader highways, more consumer goods, and a visible middle class, even larger than the U.S. But there is disagreement about what portion of the population benefits from these changes. The Guest House where I’ve stayed on four occasions enjoys certain amenities that I hadn’t enjoyed before—hot water, new furniture, and an Internet connection. Just beyond the gate, however, young women, strikingly thin, break stones and shovel rocks with hand tools, and a family pitches a small tent, their habitat on the busy, dirty street, their children barefoot and caked with dust. These are ever-present reminders of the 250 million people in India who experience little difference between pre and post-globalization. Can any of us justify our incredible wealth and privilege, not to mention our complicity in the military extravagance and greed of the U.S. government that keep us from sharing that wealth with millions in need. 

Before returning home, Dr. True also spent five days in England, where he had the opportunity to attend a retreat entitled, “Exploring Stillness—Quakers and Buddhists,” with 34 participants from the United Kingdom.

Dr. True taught English, American literature, and interdisciplinary studies during his 32-year career at Assumption, which ran from 1965–1997. His career as a peace educator began taking shape in the 1960s while he was teaching American literature and poetry. The World War I literature of such writers as T.S. Eliot and Ernest Hemingway inspired him to examine the origin and reasons behind a war, which Hemingway referred to as a “senseless slaughter.” In the 1980s, Dr. True began to teach full courses in Peace Studies at Assumption, using an interdisciplinary approach to create these curriculums.

Dr. True was twice a Fulbright Scholar in India in 1997–1998 and 2003–2004. During his first Fulbright, he taught American literature at Utkal University in Bhubaneswar, and the Center for Gandhian Studies at the University of Rajsathan in Jaipur. In his second stint as a Fulbright Scholar, he lectured on peace, conflict, and non-violent studies at four different universities in Jaipur, Calcutta, New Delhi and Banaras.

A widely respected authority on the United States’ history of nonviolence, Dr. True has written and edited 10 books, including An Energy Field More Intense Than War: The Nonviolent Tradition and American Literature (1995); The Frontiers of Nonviolence, with Chaiwat Satha-Anand (1998); To Construct Peace (1992); and Ordinary People: Family Life and Global Values (1991). He has also written numerous editorials and features for local and national publications. Dr. True has taught at over 20 universities in the United States and abroad.

For more information about Dr. True, please visit:

http://www.assumption.edu/users/mtrue/

http://www.assumption.edu/media-sources/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=2&t=135&st=0#entry136

http://www.assumption.edu/dept/Library/faculty/fpubAZ/Tfac.html#anchor439663