Background

Study of different aspects of state, society, culture and civilization relates to the academic study of the languages, texts, history, economy, polity, law and such other disciplines primarily by scholars, intellectuals  and academicians of different hues. Various kinds of schools developed and evolved by the proponents of different thoughts identifying themselves with different ideological positions. These schools of thoughts also contributed to the existing knowledge through their pioneering work in relation to their framework of knowledge system. Much of the contemporary education and research infrastructure and capability stands on the foundation laid by these schools of thought which include from colonial pioneers to nationalist and Marxist scholars. Though the quest of colonial pioneers may be claimed to be honest, they suffered from one intrinsic lacuna that they could not do anything about their lack of indigenous perspective in their quest for knowledge. The colonial scholars, being the children of European Renaissance and derivative "secular humanism" could not envision the comprehensive and integral nature of indigenous societies (with local dimensions), and the resultant framework of knowledge acquisition.

During the colonial period natives took to Western education in a big way. Along with Western education also came the Western ideological framework in a package deal. Thus the Indians who took to Indological studies did not replace the ideological framework of the colonialists, but on the other hand internalized it and made it their own. In the post-independence phase, the Marxist intervention further exacerbated the situation, as there came into being two groups of Western inspired ideologies (Anglophilia and Communism) that competed against each other, further distancing the need to look at and study India from an Indian perspective. Since Marxism is essentially a material driven philosophy, its adherents in the academia also failed to grasp the comprehensive vision of life as enunciated in Indic philosophy or to contextualize themselves in Indian environment. The native initiatives intending to take up the challenges posed by the colonialists/imperialists could not move beyond providing some valid critique to western ideological framework as the indigenous knowledge system remained frozen in past.

Thus, both colonial Indologists, and their native successors of both variety, Anglophiles and Marxists, suffer from some limitations in conceptualizing a knowledge system which relates to the expectations from any academic engagement. The Indian knowledge system owing to centuries of neglect stands frozen in past and cut from the present failing to engage itself in contemporary idioms of education and research.  INACS seeks to overcome these limitations and move beyond the existing ideological parameters so as to explore the possibilities in more effective manner.