Sanskrit *apud* Classics again...and Hindi??

[S.Johar at library.usyd.edu.au]

Further to Purushottam's posting I would like to point out the reasons for
some of the problems with Indian Studies/Devabhasa/Hindi et all - atleast in
the Sydney context, but this might well apply to all of Australia, about
that I am not sure.

Though Indian studies, and Indian history has been toaught in Sydney uni for
a number of years, the community which it is supposed to represent - the
Indians and other south asians have never been brought in, nothing has been
marketed to them as "their" cultural teaching center etc. What that means is
that they are mostly unaware of the existence of these courses. Take the
example fo the Indian students group called "Asoka" of the University of
Sydney. apparently their office bearers approached the Uni authorities last
year, but were completely unaware of teh existence of the courses that teach
Indian languages and culture (as these students predominantly come from the
science streams, it is not a surprise), and as a result we have lost out on
100s of potential customers. 

I would squarely put the blame at the doorstep of us academics who live in
our ivory towers, and expect to be funded by a government who cannot see
votes in it due to lack of community participation.

Sugandha