University of Oxford, England, has come forward with a proposal to establish a professorship in Anthropology of India in memory of distinguished sociologist M.N. Srinivas.
In a letter to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Vice-Chancellor of University of Oxford Andrew Hamilton stated that the university had taken up a project to endow an M.N. Srinivas Professorship in Anthropology of India and sought “matching funding or other incentives” to help the project come to fruition.
Committee constituted
The State government, which has agreed to the proposal in principle, has constituted a committee of expert sociologists headed by the former Vice-Chancellor of State Women’s University Geetha Bali to take the proposal forward.
The other members of the committee include K.G. Gayathri Devi from the Institute of Social and Economic Change (ISEC), R. Indira from the University of Mysore, and G. Shivaram Krishnan, retired professor of Sociology, Bangalore University.
Joint effort
H.K. Moulesh, retired professor of Sociology, National College, Bengaluru, who is the member secretary of the committee told The Hindu that the professorship will be started jointly by the Oxford University and the State government’s Department of Higher Education.
He said the committee constituted by the government is expected to meet in the coming days.
When Mr. Srinivas went to Oxford University in the late 1940s to pursue his doctoral studies, his academic learning was identified by his then supervisor Evans-Pritchard, who created a lecturership in sociology for him, he added.
Founded key concepts
Originally from Mysore, Mysore Narasimhachar Srinivas has been credited with contributing to key sociological concepts like “vote bank”, “dominant caste” and “Sanskritisation”.
Prof. Srinivas, who had been associated with various education and research institutions in Baroda, Delhi and Bengaluru, including ISEC and the National Institute of Advanced Studies, passed away in Bengaluru in 1999 at the age of 84.
Endowment
The University of Oxford has said that the endowment of the M.N. Srinivas professorship will ensure that it gets the prominence that it deserves, and that anthropological approaches contribute to new cohorts of Oxford students being trained in M.Sc. in Contemporary India, M. Phil in modern South Asia and in other courses in anthropology. “
The University of Oxford will set up a professorship and appoint a person. The committee will be deciding the academic content and other issues,” said a source in the State’s Higher Education Council, which is co-ordinating the proposal.
