RE: [Y-Indology] How to fund Indological research?

[Guest guest]

I like David Salmon's general drift on this. Self empowerment is key to

development. This requires sacrifice as Gandhi asked for. Others cannot do

it for a community, which is why the selling out by Macaulayites has failed

except to enhance divisions.

 

The west can help with reverse transfer of technology - just like France

re-imported California grapes after French grapes died of disease. There are

100,000 yoga teachers in USA and it is their 'validation' that will convince

a segment of India's elite to stop calling it backward, just as it took

Deepak Chopra's American legitimacy to return Ayurveda to India's 'new age'

movement. Western Indology should be co-opted to help reinstall Indology

centers in India's elite educational institutions, especially the

hermeneutics and critical thinking. The Harvard Roundtable that I am at is

an excellent example to bring together many fields, many voices, no pressure

or agenda to force any conclusion, no hurry to reach the end of inquiry.

More complexity as more evidence is put on the table - that's what research

should be.

 

Perhaps the Subaltern project must be re-invented. It tried to discover the

indigenous and throw out the foreign superimpositions. But the methodology

was Marxist rather than using Indic texts as basis. The scholars knew no

Sanskrit or any Indian texts - the class struggle of the unsuccessful

Marxist revolution prevented them (and still does at JNU) from any such

inquiry for fear that some saffron dressed men might walk in. These ghosts

they must face and deal with. The new team should be more eclectic and not

premised on ANY kind of homogenization.

 

Rajiv