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Kathmandu Sunday October 22, 2000 Kartik 06, 2057.
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On Neighbourly Ignorance
By Pratyoush Onta
In recent weeks I have become semi-addicted to Kaun
Banega Crorepati. Do you also watch this show regularly? If so, I am sure you
will remember that superstar host Amitabh Bachchan asked a certain Ordetta Mendoza the
following question on 9 October 2000: The parliament of which country is called the
Rashtriya Panchayat? The answer options included Bhutan and Nepal and the contestant from
Chennai, who was not 100 percent sure, guessed it was Nepal. She won rupees for that
answer and ultimately went home with IRs 3,20,000. However, I was left wondering how this
popular show in Indian television could have made such a mistake. You would think that the
producers would at least know that Rashtriyat Panchayat ceased to exist in Nepal more than
10 years ago!
Ignorance about Nepal among educated Indians – the most
telling evidence of which we have been seeing in the popular media over the past year
– requires a detailed treatment. However, a brief explanation would include these
points. Indian scholarship on Nepal has always been marginal to the main concerns of
International and Area Studies in India. In recent years, even the quality of this
marginal attention has gotten worse as the research ambiance has either stagnated or
deteriorated for reasons discussed by various contributors to the two books under review.
Ossified faculty expertise, intake of students who are more interested in preparing for
the Civil Service Examinations while utilizing university hostel and library facilities,
lack of proper academic jobs for graduates and the dwindling financial support for social
science teaching and research in India are some of the underlying causes. Very few Indian
researchers have spent quality time in Nepal partly because there is no support available
within the university network for longer field stays. The ones who have come for short
trips do not read Nepali (there might be an exception or two) as language competence does
not get adequate stress in the training of an area expert. Given this mediocre quality of
scholarship, academics have not been able to provide good input to Indian reporters about
Nepal. If you add to this situation the Indian media’s complicity in disseminating
South Block’s interpretations of Nepal, you end up with India Today equating madarsas
in the Nepal Tarai with ISI activity and KBC thinking Rashtriya Panchayat is still alive!
Contributors to Area Studies Programmes in Indian
Universities edited by Ankush B. Sawant (Professor of African Studies, University of
Bombay) and International and Area Studies in India edited by M.S. Rajan (emeritus
professor at JNU) help us come to a broader understanding of this ignorance. They provide
us details regarding the history of International and Area Studies in India. They also
describe the present not-so-optimistic scenario of the same from the point of view of
practitioners and various theoretical concerns. The former is the result of a symposium
held in 1996 while the latter is the result of a call by Rajan to his colleagues at large
to reflect on the state of the subject in India. The first volume begins with an essay by
Rajan (also included in the second book) in which he describes Indian expertise on area
studies as "quite inadequate" and goes on to give his reasons for reaching that
conclusion. While there has been a proliferation of area studies centers since the first
program was started in mid-fifties (there are more than 20 such entities in India now),
lack of priority on the part of the government, University Grants Commission (UGC) and the
Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR) have stunted the quality of work they
produce. The tension between area studies programs and traditional disciplines, lack of
proper library resources and funding for fieldworks are some of the further reasons
identified for the current state of affairs. In another essay, A P Rana regrets the fact
that area studies in India is mostly a-theoretical relational studies between states and
calls for greater theorization based on the traditional disciplines. Anirudha Gupta (a
familiar name in Nepal) puts the blame on UGC for the current malaise and contends that
area studies cannot develop in the universities! B Vivekanandan stresses that a mature
India "needs more area specialists with micro-level understanding of other nations
and their policies." A R Momin underlines that area studies programs in India suffer
from "an inexplicable and unfortunate indifference towards anthropology and
sociology." D N Patkar calls for the inclusion of experts from the sciences and
technical fields in area studies programmes.
Rajan’s several essays in the second book are very
useful for those seeking information about the history of this kind of study in India.
Also interesting are analyses offered by Kanti Bajpai and J N Dixit, among others. Bajpai
accounts for the thematic course of International Studies in India and calls for bringing
theory back to such studies. Others make a plea for changes in the current state of
affairs. However, it is unlikely to happen. In particular, it is likely that the
conditions for the production of knowledge on South Asia in India will become worse in the
years ahead. Given India’s IT romance with the US, we should not be surprised if
subsequent Area Studies efforts in India are deflected heavily towards American Studies
with possible financial help provided by the Indian Diaspora. After all, non-academic
members of this ‘successful minority in the US’ have started arriving in
conferences such as the one organized by the ICSSR in New Delhi earlier this month with
nondescript messages of congratulations from various office holders such as the mayor of
Chicago!
Amitabh Bachchan, in the meantime, might have to ‘phone
a friend’ located in the other countries of the region if he wants to be confident
about the questions he is asking about India’s neighbours!
(P.Onta is doing research on area studies.)
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