INDIA’S PREPAREDNESS FOR PROMOTING DIGITAL HUMANITIES – LACUNAE AND FOCAL AREAS FOR RESEARCH

In the early days of digital humanities in India, initiatives like Project Madurai (a digital archive of classical Tamil texts) and Bichitra (a digital translation of Rabindranath Tagore's works) were developed. There is a lack of commitment to digital humanities initiatives at both public and private institutions, as well as among nonacademic organisations and individual scholars. While these digital infrastructures facilitate the engagement of Indian humanities scholars in digital humanities research practises, obstacles posed by the infrastructure itself limit the researchers' ability to make full use of the computational tools and resources at their disposal. A digital humanities lab, digital humanities education, digital tools and software, and institutional and governmental support are all examples of physical infrastructure that will be discussed in this study, along with the challenges they provide. To back up our assertions, we'll discuss the findings of a brief poll and some interviews with members of India's DH community