Indian Studies in Soviet Social Studies

The article is focused on the evolution of Soviet Indian studies in the course of the 1970s and 1980s, i.e. the period of the discipline’s indisputable academic upsurge. The present author maintains that factors instrumental of Indian studies’ ascendant development were many; among the latter foreign policy imperatives as well as high quality intellectual talent available are distinguished to explain the advancement of this area of social science research to the status of socially significant professional activities. Socio-economic, history and political studies are taken to demonstrate the academic accomplishments of Soviet scholars who exploited their own “wisdom” to comprehend India’s complex social reality and, also, utilized critical assessment of the existent social science research paradigms circulating in Indian scholarship. The “crisis” of Indian studies dating back to the late 1980s is discussed in basic aspects. The social and political origins of the “crisis” are being highlighted. The evolution of Soviet Indian studies during the late 1980s is investigated at the backdrop of sociopolitical development in the years preceding the USSR’s dismemberment. Tentative factors instrumental of the eventual “comeback” of Indian studies as an academic discipline of high societal stature are estimated.