Nehru and Persian/Arabic

[Narayan S. Raja]

On Tue, 12 Jan 1999, N. Ganesan wrote:

>  From the draft copy submitted to Govt. of India from
>  Institute of Asian studies, Madras entitled as
>  Tamil as a Classical language, [...deleted...]


Dear Ganesan,

You provide a great service by
reminding people that "Indology"
can't be just "North Indiology".
So I hate to pick on you.  But...


>  Because Tamil is classified by GOI as a modern Indian
>  language (MIL) and a regional language, the growth in its
>  reasearch avenues are held up by delays and lack of funds.

You mean modern languages in India are
less funded than classical languages?
E.g., Sanskrit/Persian/Arabic are better funded
than Tamil or Hindi?  I doubt it.  Do you have
some numbers?


>  The University Grants Commission allocates funds for
>  research into Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian only.

At last -- one specific concrete statement!
But is it true?  Really, does the UGC allocate
no funds for Tamil, Hindi,...?  All their
cash goes into Sanskrit/Arabic/Persian?

Regards,


Raja.

PS:  Unless specific facts are cited, this is
     my last email on this topic.