Chehabi Speaks in Mumbai
Houchang Chehabi, Professor of International Relations and History at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, spoke during a trip in winter 2015 to Mumbai, India.
Chehabi’s lecture took place on Dec. 18, 2015, at the K. R. Cama Oriental Institute, a venerable institution of Mumbai’s Parsi community. Parsi refers to a community of followers of the Zoroastrian religion, most prevalent on the Indian subcontinent.
“My talk was related to a book I have been working on, which is on the introduction of family names and civil registries in Iran between 1919 and 1925. It traces the legal development, the linguistic aspects, and the social consequences of this policy, which was motivated by the desire to create a conscript army,” Chehabi said.
He praised the learned audience, which he theorized was largely made up of Parsi community members.
Chehabi has published two books, Iranian Politics and Religious Modernism: The Liberation Movement of Iran under the Shah and Khomeini (1990) and Distant Relations: Iran and Lebanon in the Last 500 Years (2006). Learn more about him here.