De/Increase in USA's India interest, 1970's??

[John Oliver Perry]

>Coinciding as it did with the US resumption of links with China, it led to
>a significant diminution of interest in India.>>

Oh really! where exactly did the EPW guys get this from? What the dear souls
fail to understand is that America has invested a lot of money in trying to
understand countries which are inimical to it as opposed to "friendly"

    The above exchange occurred on Indology today.  Since my first “serious” 
(?) interest in India began in 1967-70 (following university-based 
anti-Vietnam non-violent action projects based on MLKing following Gandhi 
following Thoreau....), my first Fulbright there in 1971-72, I have to wonder 
what “significant diminution of interest in India” refers to, vis a vis 
Americans.  Surely historians cannot forget all those American Seekers (and 
such-like hippies from "the West") who followed the Beatles who followed 
Allen Ginsberg to India in the late 60’ and 70’s, and the explosion of 
interest in Gurus, Rishis, Yoga and Transcendental meditation in the US 
througout the 70s.  I thought this was a forum of historians, even though 
Indologists!!!   

    Well, to tell the truth-- and why not?-- I know the EPW remark refers to 
other professional historians/Indologists, and the issue has been joined 
around the amount of US government support of “professional interest.”  
Still, I would be very surprised if indeed the numbers of (US and other 
"Western") students involved in studying India and classes offered (I gave a 
couple myself!) decreased around the ‘70s.  In fact, my impression is that 
they increased!  Who can get the accurate stats, please!?  

  ATB    John Oliver Perry  (Emeritus Prof, English, Tufts, Boston, USA)