QUALIFICATIONS TO EXPRESS ON THIS INDOLOGY GROUP

[Anthony Good]

> Date:    Thu, 19 Oct 2000 17:06:18 +0100
> From:    "Anand M. Sharan" <asharan at ENGR.MUN.CA>
> Subject: QUALIFICATIONS TO EXPRESS ON THIS INDOLOGY GROUP

> There are many think that they know about India by reading books which do
> not contain facts .
>
> First thing is to know India first hand otherwise forming opinions based on
> incomplete survey does not lead any one any where . For example, if one
> reads literature sold at the check out counters of the grocery stores in
> U.S.A., the opinion so formed would be totally false .

The discussion seems to have muddled up two issues which are actually
wholly separate.

(i) the quality of Indian education.  In a previous incarnation I taught
chemistry at a university in Sri Lanka and had some contact with
Indian science teaching.  The best was of world standard, the worst,
partly because of lack of resources, was awful.

(ii) However, that is hardly the point.  Would we confidently drive
over a bridge built by an indologist with no engineering training?  I think
not.  Likewise, what basis is there for taking seriously an indological
theory propounded by an engineer with no indological training?

The idea that being Indian or living in India gives one some kind of
privileged status where indology is concerned is simply wrong, just as it
would be wrong to assume that every Indian (or for that matter, every
Briton) intuitively knows about Indian (or British) geology or hydrology,
etc.  It is not ethnic origin which is the issue here, but professional
training.

Tony Good
--
Dr Anthony Good
Department of Social Anthropology,
University of Edinburgh
Edinburgh EH8 9LL

A.Good at ed.ac.uk (work)
agood at bluenote.demon.co.uk (home/travel)