Indology's Future?

[V.V. Raman]

It was stated in one of these threads:
<Never in history has a group of people abandoned their own real ancestors so
completely and thoroughly and tried to co-opt the ancestors of another group in
such shameful a fashion.>

Very good observation. However:
1. Scholars in the West have not < abandoned their own real ancestors so
completely and thoroughly.> I dare say there are far more Western historians
concerned with their local, cultural, political history than there are who are
interested in the histories of other peoples.
2. This phenomenon in Western civilization is essentially a product of the much
maligned 18th century European Enlightenment. It has had both bad and good
consequences:
        (a) On the one hand, (as many people from the ex-colonies know and
feel) it has caused much (both intentional and unintentional) distortion,
misunderstanding, even misrepresentation of alien cultures and histories.
        (b) On the other hand it has also led to the discovery of a good deal
of lost history of the human family. From the decipherment of the Rosetta stone
to the fruits of excavations in Mohanjo Daro and Harappa, from the recovery of
Ashoka's stupa to the decipherment of Pali texts in Sri Lanka, this
inquisitiveness on the part of Western scholars has opened the eyes of people
all over the world to their own histories. Thus were born Egyptology, Sinology,
Indology, the history of Ancient Greece, etc.
3. Maybe it is time ask Western scholars to curtail, indeed extinguish, their
interest in non-Western cultures and histories, and let each group write its
own history the way it thinks is appropriate or truthful. Maybe Western
scholars should be asked to get out of our arena and be concerned with only
their own histories. Indeed this is already happening.
4. My own feeling is that when the present generation of Western scholars of
Indology and of other non-Westernology pass away, there may not be too many of
this species left. Unless (as it is sometimes alleged) their ultimate goal is
to trivialize non-Western cultures and turn them all  Christian (an explicit
19th century goal, in many instances), one sees no reason why universities in
the West should be expending vast amounts of money to <train> scholars in
non-Western studies.
5. I suspect that students in the West will begin to wonder why they should be
devoting their time and intellectual energies in the exploration of the
histories and cultures of other peoples, given that the subject matter is laden
with legitimate cultural sensitivity and  suspicions towards them: legitimate
because these have resulted from the economic exploitation, political
oppression, and cultural denigration that Western imperialism and colonialism
has inflicted upon non-Western peoples during the past few centuries. On the
other hand, given the intrinsically aggressive and inquisitive nature of
Western culture, this may not happen either.
V. V. Raman
November 15, 2000