Moving Beyond Macaulay: ICSSR Pushes for 'De-colonised' Research in New Undergraduate Scheme

The Union government is rolling out an ₹18-crore fellowship programme to incentivise Indian-centric academic projects for final-year students.

The classroom, for decades, has been a space where Western academic frameworks held the final say. Now, the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) is attempting to flip that script. Under a new initiative called the Yuva Shodh Pratibha Scheme (YSPS), the council is committing ₹18 crore to fund 600 undergraduate research projects, specifically targeting students in the seventh and eighth semesters of the Four-Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP).

Each selected student will receive a grant of ₹3 lakh to explore themes that actively challenge what the ICSSR terms "Eurocentric models" of knowledge. The scope is ambitious: the call document asks students to look at everything from the re-examination of Indo-Aryan migration theories to "de-anglicising" linguistics and moving beyond the colonial-era Macaulay model of education.

A Shift Toward Indigenous Frameworks

This is not just about funding; it is a clear push for an "Indian-centric" approach to research. The scheme encourages scholars to incorporate Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) and local social realities into their work. Applicants are invited to rethink governance and political thought by drawing on the works of thinkers like Kautilya, Mahatma Gandhi, and VD Savarkar, while also applying these lenses to contemporary sectors like finance, trade, and environmental sustainability.

By focusing on undergraduate students, the government is aiming to plant the seeds of this "decolonisation of knowledge" early in the academic lifecycle. It is a departure from the traditional postgraduate-heavy focus of research grants, placing the onus on younger scholars to build a framework that prioritises local history and indigenous psychology over imported academic traditions.

The Bigger Picture: Why It Matters

This initiative is a critical piece of the broader puzzle laid out by the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. By institutionalising research funding at the undergraduate level, the ICSSR is attempting to reshape the intellectual pipeline in India. The underlying objective is to pivot the national discourse toward an internal critique of history and social sciences, effectively decentralising European intellectual dominance in Indian universities.

Whether this succeeds in creating a robust, alternate school of research depends on how students interpret these wide-ranging domains. While the funding is significant, the long-term impact will be measured by the quality of the findings and whether they move beyond ideological posturing to become rigorous, peer-reviewed academic contributions. For now, the programme signals that the state is ready to invest heavily in a new, distinctively Indian academic identity.