Guest guest Posted May 12, 2001 Report Share Posted May 12, 2001 Richard B Mahoney wrote: > A private foundation which > wishes to fund a lecture series usually does so only if the> series of lectures promotes its own interests. This is what> bothers me. Such a relationship seems to me to sit uncomfortably> with what, in this country at least, is seen as an inalienable> principle, academic freedom. > >> I would suggest that the group that has the greatest interest in Indology, and, increasingly, the means to pay for it, is Indians. Indian dot-com millionaires are numerous, and surely some would see it as their patriotic and/or religious duty to fund Indological research. In addition to funding chairs at Western universities (such as the new chair at Oxford), India and Indians would profit from also funding (1) research fellowships for Indians at Western universities to gain command of Western Indological knowledge and transfer the "technology" back to India, and (2) chairs in Indological subjects at leading Indian universities, some of which might even initially be held by Indologists from abroad (!). The goal should be not only to educate Westerners about India, but, more importantly, to transfer the knowledge and intellectual resources of the West concerning India to India and Indians, which can then bring its enormous intellectual resources to bear. The greater Indology of the future should be built primarily in India, where it will eventually dwarf all that the West could ever do in the best of circumstances, if it develops its own academic freedom. David Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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