Digital archive to index rare and historical Indian texts

Global Network Associate Professor of Political Science at NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) Rahul Sagar, has spent the past five years building a significant digital resource for the study of modern India.

Ideas of India is an index of the English-language periodicals that Indians began publishing after the advent of modern education in 1832. These periodicals served as the forum where statesmen and intellectuals formulated and debated the ideas that have shaped modern India.

Few of these periodicals remain in India where funding constraints and natural disasters have resulted in the loss of rare and precious archives. Consequently, the bulk of these periodicals are scattered across more than 120 libraries around the world, making it expensive and time consuming to consult them.

Aided by research grants from the US, Singapore, and NYU Abu Dhabi, Sagar employed research assistants around the world to collect and index the contents of these periodicals, making it significantly easier for scholars to pinpoint which periodical might be relevant to their research and to trace physical copies.