Read what I wrote, and reread it again. I don't think you understood what I said.
What I'm positing is that the crux of the issue with the Western crop of South Asia is that it is hagiographic in nature, not quantitative.
My argument is an institutionalist and political economy approach to studying historical and contemporary South Asia solves most of the problem.
This was what John Fairbanks argued back in the 20th century that China studies needed to be quantitative and testable in nature, as he was an Intel officer posted in China during WW2. This was not the mainstream view on China studies and China history in the west until the late 2010s.
That said, anyone with this muscle isn't going to teach history in the West in 2026 unlike those who did something similar for China in the 1980s-2000s who made a new generation of China scholars who returned to China.
There is a new generation of India scholars who specialize in this (a number of whom trained under economists like Arvind Subramanian, Raghuram Rajan, etc) but most of these scholars either return to India to take positions at INIs and are thus not visible to Western academia) or (and this is the more common route) end up in the Policy space as the newer crop of IAS, NITI Aayog staffers, World Bank or IMF staffers, India-specific VC/PE, or India specific think tanks.
Edit: can't reply
> why is the academic work being done in Indian institutions so inaccessible in the US and the rest of the anglosphere
Because they publish in Economics journals and work on Political Economy, not "History". This is what the best South Asia scholars in America (eg. Subramanian, Varshney, Rajan) do as well.
It's the same with China scholars - the best ones are economists and are quantitative in nature.
Turns out the skills needed to understand the political economy of the Bengal Subah or the incentive structures of coinage reform in Qing China are also useful to craft economic policy for contemporary countries.
Why work in underfunded and frankly low impact history when you can actually affect change (and make good money and a career) in the various applications of Econ.
In your view, why is the academic work being done in Indian institutions so inaccessible in the US and the rest of the anglosphere? Naively, I would have assumed a lot of this work would be conducted in English, or at the very least translated into English for the sake of international conferences, journals, etc.
> why is the academic work being done in Indian institutions so inaccessible in the US and the rest of the anglosphere
Because they publish in Economics journals and work on Political Economy, not "History". This is what the best South Asia scholars in America (eg. Subramanian, Varshney, Rajan) do as well.
It's the same with China scholars - the best ones are economists and are quantitative in nature.
Turns out the skills needed to understand the political economy of the Bengal Subah or the incentive structures of coinage reform in Qing China are also useful to craft economic policy for contemporary countries.
Why work in underfunded and frankly low impact history departments when you can actually affect change (and make good money and a career) in the various applications of Econ.
There is a community of those kinds of scholars now, but most of them are generally affiliated with Econ departments (eg. Subramanian) or Business Schools (eg. Rajan) and when given the opportunity, leave academia to take an Indian government position at the WB, IMF, NITI Aayog, or a national or state level economic adviser like Krishnamurthy Subramanian or Nirupam Bajpai.
I knew one back at my Alma mater who if they decided to remain in academia probably would have become a tenure track India studies professor, but he was given an opportunity to directly work on FDI and Tech Policy at PMO which was more exiciting, had more impact, and opened more doors.
What I'm positing is that the crux of the issue with the Western crop of South Asia is that it is hagiographic in nature, not quantitative.
My argument is an institutionalist and political economy approach to studying historical and contemporary South Asia solves most of the problem.
This was what John Fairbanks argued back in the 20th century that China studies needed to be quantitative and testable in nature, as he was an Intel officer posted in China during WW2. This was not the mainstream view on China studies and China history in the west until the late 2010s.
That said, anyone with this muscle isn't going to teach history in the West in 2026 unlike those who did something similar for China in the 1980s-2000s who made a new generation of China scholars who returned to China.
There is a new generation of India scholars who specialize in this (a number of whom trained under economists like Arvind Subramanian, Raghuram Rajan, etc) but most of these scholars either return to India to take positions at INIs and are thus not visible to Western academia) or (and this is the more common route) end up in the Policy space as the newer crop of IAS, NITI Aayog staffers, World Bank or IMF staffers, India-specific VC/PE, or India specific think tanks.
Edit: can't reply
> why is the academic work being done in Indian institutions so inaccessible in the US and the rest of the anglosphere
Because they publish in Economics journals and work on Political Economy, not "History". This is what the best South Asia scholars in America (eg. Subramanian, Varshney, Rajan) do as well.
It's the same with China scholars - the best ones are economists and are quantitative in nature.
Turns out the skills needed to understand the political economy of the Bengal Subah or the incentive structures of coinage reform in Qing China are also useful to craft economic policy for contemporary countries.
Why work in underfunded and frankly low impact history when you can actually affect change (and make good money and a career) in the various applications of Econ.