Contemporary India: some sociological perspectives

BEFORE THE ADVENT OF OUR POLITICAL FREEDOM, INDIAN universities, less than a score in number, produced distinguished scholars in various disciplines. Despite numerous handicaps including our colonial status, this outstanding intellectual performance was possible because ability, merit, and talent were recognized and encouraged.
But today, particularly in the last decade or two, although Indian universities have multiplied to almost a hundred (more than five-fold in about 28 years), the output of distinguished scholars and consequently the production of enduring and worthwhile publications has diminished to a remarkable degree judged by certain basic, objective, internationally-recognized criteria. Some serious reflection on the human condition in our universities today will compel most students to agree with this discouraging observation. An exception here and there, such as this series, only highlights the validity of the general observation.
If academic studies in general are of poor quality, the position of social research in general, and sociological studies in particular, is even more unenviable.
Indian university studies-subjects, curriculum, nature of research and general intellectual orientation-have their genesis in British rule and what the rulers thought fit and necessary for India in a particular historical and political con text. It must be frankly confessed that the influence of British academic tradition-as evolved at Oxford and Cambridge-on Indian university education is largely responsible for the poor and undeveloped status of sociological studies in India.