"Hindu"

[Bijoy Misra]

On Mon, 16 Jun 1997, Mr B.Philip.Jonsson wrote:

> 
> >At the same time, it is necessary that we keep the
> >people out of Indology research, since it amounts to
> >reflecting on conduct, morality and sociology,
> >which are not necessarily the topics of interest for
> >this group.
> 
> What do you mean by 'keep the people out of Indology research'? That
> Indology should be elitist, only open to an elite and only deal with elite
> culture?  I doubt that anything useful can be said on anything that has to
> do with culture if one is leaving out social issues.
> 

No, never.  Not to exclude anyone's research interest,
but not to make general remarks from cursory observations
of local conditions of people.  To study why a condition
what it is is one thing, and then to make a value judgment
is another thing.  The latter goes in the realm of politicians,
social reformers or even religious activists. On the
other hand, to understand any simple condition what is would 
consume a life time work.  It's good that we have begun..

- BM