Afro-Dravidian Studies

In 1974 trip, Senegal’s President Leopold Senghor traveled to India. He was inducted as an honorary fellow into the Indian National Academy of Letters, Sahitya Akademi. He also made addresses in India and Sénégal to introduce the Department of Afro-Indian Studies, to be established as a collaboration between L’Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noir, the Indian Council on Cultural Relations, and Annamalai University in Chidambaram, India, which had a notable center of Dravidian linguistics research and was in close proximity to Pondicherry, the former center of France’s colonial possessions in India. The Sénégalese Ministry of Culture helped identify three Sénégalese students to study at Annamalai. The first Sénégalese scholar, a linguist, to arrive in Madras was Dr. Cheikh Tidiane N’Diaye in 1974; Souleymane Faye and Mamadou N'diaye went as doctoral students in 1977. Three Indian faculty, K.P. Aravanan, U.P. Upadhyaya, and his wife Susheela took up residence in Dakar in 1973.