Open Letter Against National Overseas Scholarship (NOS) Restrictions
(2022-2023 Guidelines)
https://www.academicfreedomindia.com/open-letter-against-2022-2023-nos-restrictions
The National Overseas Scholarship was instituted in 1954–55 as a reparative justice measure against the exploitation and exclusion enforced by the caste system
The argument that one need not go abroad to study India is intellectually flawed and will only serve to isolate Indian scholarship from the rest of the world. International scientific networks are highly globally integrated. Universities around the world have thriving departments and research centres on South Asia, and it is vital that scholars and researchers from marginalised backgrounds in India contribute to and participate in these international networks and research centres.
It is crucial that scholarship on India retains an international character, not least because Indian migrants have travelled across and settled in all the continents, and the study of Indian languages, cultures, histories, art forms, societal and political developments can never be territorially cut off from India’s interactions with other parts of the world.
The current reversal of the policy comes at a time when we are also witnessing other developments to push back the gains from the various reparative justice and affirmative action measures that have been in place for the past seven decades. A high percentage of reserved posts across faculties of Indian central universities and other higher education institutions such as the institutes of technology and management are vacant, ostensibly because no suitable candidates applied