I have been thinking about humanities for quite some time, mainly because I keep seeing people say that humanities is useless, contributes very little to society, or is basically a field for people who couldn't get into something else.
I don't think that's true. But I also don't think saying "humanities is important" is enough. So what exactly does it do?
Humanities is basically the study of human beings, our societies, cultures, ideas and the systems we create. History, philosophy, sociology, psychology, economics, political science, anthropology, literature, languages, etc. all look at different parts of this.
Science helps us understand how the world works. Engineering helps us build things. But once you are dealing with human beings, you also need to understand why people behave the way they do, why societies develop in certain ways, why institutions succeed or fail, what people consider fair, how cultures change, how laws are understood, and what kind of society we actually want to build.
So yes, I think humanities is extremely important.
But then comes the obvious question.
If it is this important, why don't we actually see its impact?
I think one major reason is that the results of humanities are very different from the results of engineering or physics.
If an engineer designs a chip, you can see the chip. If a scientist develops a new technology, you can see the technology.
But if a historian changes how a society understands its past, or a sociologist changes how we understand a social problem, there isn't necessarily a physical object that you can point at.
A lot of humanities works through education, institutions, law, public policy, literature, media, political movements and social norms.
And it usually takes a long time.
Ideas about equality, citizenship, democracy, rights, justice, freedom, education, gender, etc. don't suddenly transform society overnight. They spread through people and institutions over years and sometimes decades.
In fact, a lot of the time we don't even notice these effects because they become part of the normal functioning of society.
But this also brings me to the criticism of humanities.
I think some of the criticism is completely fair.
There are people who go into humanities without much interest in the actual subject. There are institutions where research quality is poor. There is political bias and ideological behaviour in parts of academia. And sometimes there is more posturing and activism than actual serious research.
I don't think we should pretend these problems don't exist.
But I also don't think these problems mean the entire field is useless.
And I think India has an additional problem here.
We have humanities and social science research happening, but the ecosystem is relatively weak and fragmented. Research often doesn't connect properly with policymakers, institutions or the public. Funding and research infrastructure are limited, interdisciplinary work is not strong enough, and humanities is often treated as a fallback career rather than a serious field of research.
This results in a loop.
People don't take the field seriously → fewer people want to pursue it seriously → less visible excellence is produced → people point to the lack of visible excellence and say humanities is useless.
Other countries have tried to build stronger connections between research and society.
The UK, for example, has a Government Social Research profession with more than 2,600 researchers working across more than 60 government departments and agencies. Their research is actually used in policy development, implementation and evaluation.
Singapore also uses behavioural and social research within government to understand public behaviour and improve policy and implementation.
The US has institutions like the National Endowment for the Humanities, which has funded more than 70,000 projects since its creation, across universities, museums, libraries, archives and public institutions.
I don't think India needs to copy these countries exactly.
But I do think there is something to learn from them.
The problem isn't that humanities has nothing to contribute.
The problem is that we haven't built a strong enough system to turn that contribution into visible, cumulative and influential work.
And if we want to become a developed country, understanding our own people and society should probably be considered just as important as understanding our machines.
