Like all good advisors, Prof. Sheldon Pollock is looking out for his students and hence strongly advocates the creation of an Indian Institute of Humanities!
Seriously though, this is a must read OPED in The Hindu from Pollock on the irony of endowing classical language status to Kannada and Telugu even as scholars who can read classical literature in those languages disappear completely.
Money quote.
The great edifice of Indian literary scholarship has nearly been torn down. Is it possible, at this late hour, to build it up again? India has shown itself capable of achieving pre-eminence in anything it sets its mind to. Consider the Indian Institutes of Management, of Science, and of Technology. Universities and companies and organisations around the world compete for the graduates of the IIMs, IISs, IITs. Why should India not commit itself to build the same kind of institute to serve the needs of its culture — not just dance and art and music, but its literary culture? Why should it not build an Indian Institute of the Humanities devoted not just to revivifying the study of the classical languages, but to producing world-class scholarship, as a demonstration of what is possible, a model for universities to follow, and a source of new scholars to staff those universities? It is not too late. The reward of success would be incalculable; the cost of failure would be catastrophic.
Will post a Kannada translation later today.
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