In a move heavy with symbolism, Columbia University has announced three fellowships in Sanskrit studies meant exclusively for Dalit scholars. Reactions are, predictably, mixed. Some protest the splashy tokenism of the idea, while others applaud the point it makes — flinging open the doors of Sanskrit scholarship to communities that have historically been kept out of an entire world of privilege and learning.

Sanskrit pedagogy has shrunk over the decades, and no one has chronicled the slo-mo death of Sanskrit literary culture as comprehensively as Professor Sheldon Pollock, the moving spirit behind these scholarships as well as initiatives like the Clay Sanskrit library. Certainly, many of those who mourn this moment as the twilight of our classical heritage are often those most invested in this us-and-them logic, of elite distinction. But that does not take away from the fact that Sanskrit scholarship needs serious attention, when the number of those who read and translate literary works is dwindling dramatically. Pollock has pointed out how, with the passing away of H.C. Bhayani, the great Apabhramsha scholar, the field of Apabhramsha studies itself died in India. We are on the brink of losing the very intellectual traditions that produced us (and Sanskrit is a very significant strand of this history). And if we do not engage with the past, the past controls us — India is one of the rare places where myth and religion, the texts of long ago, can be deployed for modern political mobilisation.

That the Sanskrit literary and intellectual tradition was a rarefied and exclusionary one is obvious. That it was one of the splendid founts of our culture is also self-evident. A scholarship like this, small as it is, addresses both facts. Mostly, the slender band of Indian academics immersed in Sanskrit studies are those who found their foothold from their families and personal background. By expanding that space for Dalit academics, it could possibly even inaugurate a new angle into the study of the same texts. Either way, the fellowships, named for Columbia alum B.R Ambedkar, make an eloquent case for similar initiatives in India.