The Minister of Science,
Prof. Dr. Armin Willingmann
Ministerium für Wissenschaft, Energie, Klimaschutz und Umwelt des Landes
Sachsen-Anhalt
Leipziger Straße 58
D-39112 Magdeburg (Germany)
Email: VzMin@mwu.sachsen-anhalt.de
Respected Minister,
dear Prof. Willingmann,
To mitigate severe
budgetary difficulties, the senate of the Martin-Luther University (MLU) of
Halle-Wittenberg will decide on April 6, 2022, to implement a budget and
development plan that involves the cutting of the chair of Indology, and thus a
de facto shut down of Indological research and education at the MLU Halle. If carried
out, this ill-founded decision will eliminate the subject of Indology in the
state of Saxony-Anhalt and severely damage teaching and research of this
crucial academic subject in Germany, Europe and worldwide.
The Republic of India
and its neighbouring countries form the politically, economically and
culturally powerful greater area of South Asia, comparable to Greater Europe in
its cultural diversity, historical depth, and political and economic relevance.
Pre-modern South Asia is home to the great religions of Hinduism and Buddhism
and multiple cultural, literary and scientific traditions that contributed to
the shaping of large parts of Asia from Tibet to China and from Thailand to
Indonesia for many hundreds of years up to the present day. A fifth of the
world’s population lives in South Asia today.
Religions and
worldviews originating from South Asia also gain influence in the western and
globalized world. In the coming decades, the Republic of India is rising to a
significant regional political and economic power. Against the background,
Indological research and teaching, are evidently of central academic and social
relevance.
This fact is
contrasted with an insufficient representation of Indology at German
universities. Indology, whose topic is the entire cultural area of South Asia
in all its dimensions for around 3500 years based on original language sources
in Old and Middle Indic languages, is only represented at five universities in
Germany with one professorship each. Further cuts are an existential danger for
the subject of Indology in Germany.
The decision to
abolish Indology at the MLU Halle does not only leave Indology’s social and
academic relevance out of consideration. It also entirely disregards the
achievements of Indology at the MLU over the last fifteen years, such as the
database of research articles SARDS 3 (https://sards.uni-halle.de/?do=about), the most comprehensive up-to-date online dictionary
of Sanskrit (http://nws.uzi.uni-halle.de/?lang=en), and the interactive palaeographic atlas of South
Asia “Indoskript” (http://www.indoskript.org/). The former chair of Indology at the MLU Halle has
raised more than 6,000,000 € in research funds from the German Research
Foundation. Moreover, the Indological books series Veröffentlichungen der
Indologischen Kommission and Studia Indologica Universitatis Halensis has
published 60 monograph volumes in the same period (https://uvhw.de/studia-indologica.html).
One may safely assume
that the successor of the chair of Indology will continue to write this
academic story of success. If the MLU Halle implements the current budget and
development plan as decided, it will, however, violate its fundamental
interest.
To prevent this damage
from the MLU Halle and the academia in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany and Europe, we
thus urgently request you to deny your approval to the abolition of Indology at
the MLU Halle and to arrange the replacement of the vacant chair of Indology in
due course.