A Panel Discussion on The Humanities in Indian Languages

About the Panel Discussion
The academic humanities in India are primarily practised in the medium of English. The dominance of English in higher education continues unabated today. Since the colonial period, the humanities outside academia have mainly been done in the Indian languages. Despite their social and political efficacy – actual and potential – they remain peripheral to the humanities narratives within and outside India. It is time that we critically explore the humanistic practices in the medium of and within the world of Indian languages. What does it mean to engage in humanistic learning and writing in Indian languages? How do they become constitutive of the discursive world they make and remake? If humanistic practices are inevitably contingent, situated, and interactive, then their stories in the Indian context are yet to be fully written. By drawing upon resources from Hindi, Kannada, and Malayalam, the speakers in the panel will throw light on how the humanities in India have penetrated and been shaped by the larger society over time.

The World Humanities Report
The World Humanities Report (WHR) presents diverse ways the humanities enable us to understand social realities and human entanglements in different regions of the world. In collaboration with UNESCO, the Consortium of Humanities Centres and Institutes (CHCI) and the International Council of Philosophy and the Human Sciences (CIPSH) coordinate the making of this report. Eight core research groups, organised regionally (Africa, the Americas, Arab Region, Australia, Europe, Mainland China, Russia, and South Asia), contribute to the fashioning of this report.

CHCI has invited Dr Bishnu Mohapatra to anchor the report for India/South Asia. With the help of thirteen critical essays and twelve short video conversations, the India/South Asia report depicts the humanities’ active presence in plural locations, diverse forms, and multiple tongues in the region. The report is by no means exhaustive. Its central objective is gestural, which points out how the humanities have enabled critical interrogation of social practices in India and South Asia. The report is in the final stage of its completion.