History is effectively reduced to some questions posed to modernity. Representatives of modernity are expected to give fresh answer to these questions. Quality of future social situations depends on the strength of the answers provided. Our colonial history, which began literally from the battle-field of Plassy posed some questions to us. Among these questions there was crucially the question about the possibility of integrating the best of East and West or drafting effective modes of response to Western knowledge systems from Indian perspective …, and like.

Had we been able to answer these questions properly during the last 200 years or these were really left as unfinished goal? Any discussion of Indian knowledge systems (IKS )today cannot be fruitfully done without any reference to the colonial responses, by critically reassessing the wide spectrum of answers provided on behalf of the contemporary scholars and academic policy makers – both native and British. Indeed the colonial lessons suggest that one of the central purposes of studying IKS today is to locate the most sustaining parts of Indian knowledge tradition which are still relevant today beyond only antiquarian interest and to work out their possible modern integration. This is a huge task which calls for proper disciplinary division of History and Philosophy of Science in a new institutional format. But History and Philosophy of Science are still like orphan in Indian academic context as they have hardly any departmental affiliation.

However, different sporadic initiatives like interdisciplinary projects had been taken up during the last 50 years or so after independence.

In 1981, the Indian Council of Philosophical Research (ICPR) conceived and developed a major multidisciplinary project entitled Project of History of Indian Science, Philosophy and Culture ( PHISPC) , under the leadership of the late Professor D. P. Chattopadhyay. ICPR continued to develop this project till 1997, when it was transferred to the Centre for Studies in Civilization (CSC). Under the PHISPC more than 100 massive volumes have been brought out so far. Navanalanda Mahavihara , Nalanda pioneered to host a regular Science Philosophy Dialogue for the last 18 years or so which came out recently as four volumes of Nalanda Dialogue Series .

But outcome of these all sporadic initiatives have not yet been taken together uniformly to be effected in the pedagogical levels of Indian Universities so far it is a question of developing systematic interdisciplinary curriculum or research programs .

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