[IMC Bombay] Fwd: Invitation from VAK

[Shekhar Krishnan]

>Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2003 12:19:02 +0530
>From: Vikas Adhyayan Kendra <vak@bom3.vsnl.net.in>
>X-Accept-Language: en
>To: pukar@bol.net.in
>Subject: Invitation from VAK
>
>Lokawangmay Griha, Vikas Adhyayan Kendra & Forum for Secular Democracy
>cordially invite you for a lecture by Dr. K. N. Panikkar followed by an
>interactive session.
>
>Venue: Bhupesh Gupta Bhavan, Prabhadevi, Mumbai.
>
>Date: Saturday 8th March 2003, Time: 0430 p.m. to 0730 p.m.
>
>Theme: Communal attack on common bonds in civil society: issues and
>concerns.
>
>Programme Highlights: 0430 p.m. - 0530 p.m.: Presentation by Dr. K. N.
>Panikkar
>
>0530 -0545 p.m.: Tea Break
>
>0545 - 0730 p.m.: Interactive session with Dr. K. N. Panikkar,
>
>An Abstract of the Theme:
>
>The nature of public discourse in India has undergone a molecular
>transformation during the last two decades. The religious communitarian
>and communal assumptions have increasingly displaced the rational and
>the secular. Be it in social relations, political choices or cultural
>formations, religious identity appears to influence their articulation.
>As a consequence, the common bonds in civil society developed over a
>prolonged period of public engagement have been steadily undermined. The
>
>civil society in India has drawn sustenance, among other things, from
>three main features of Indian civilization: social accommodation,
>religious respect and cultural co-existence. Communalism has impacted so
>
>much adversely on all the three that the society appears to be engulfed
>by a
>decivilising process. The secular action has not been strong and
>effective enough to counter the communal influence. Introspection about
>the reasons for the failure of secular forces to stem the tide of
>communalism is therefore called for. Pursuing the politics of opportuism
>
>from the time of colonialism to the present the communal forces have
>gained the support of 'secular' formations to come to power in Centre as
>
>well as in states. This advance has been possible because of the
>ideological influence it exercises in society through continuous
>intervention in the social and cultural life of the people. The
>political power of communalism therefore draws upon social and cultural
>activism.
>
>This dimension of communalism is not adequately recognised in both
>conceptualizing and implementing the secular practice. As a result the
>secular practice is by and large limited to political action and even
>when it takes cognizance of the cultural it does not comprehend the
>cultural in its broad meaning. It is confined to the realm of the
>creative and does not cover the problems of everyday life. As a result,
>the contrast between the communal and the secular is very well marked.
>The secular is rational and associational whereas the communal is
>emotional and communitarian. The secular also suffers from the cultural
>uncertainty, as the question of how to relate to the tradition does not
>seem to have been fully resolved in the secular practice. The communal
>forces have no such ambiguity as they identify culture with religion.
>Even the language of the communication the secular forces use tend to be
>
>contrived, as it does not incorporate the cultural experience to the
>people. The communal, on the other hand, integrates the religious and
>the traditional in its idiom of communication, which is therefore more
>easily accessible to the common man. The communal practice therefore has
>
>an inherent advantage which calls for extremely innovative secular
>interventions, if the influence of communalism, which threatens to
>engulf the society, is to be successfully met.
>
>About Prof. K. N. Panikkar:
>
>Dr. K.N. Panikkar is among the foremost historians of modern India.
>Formerly with Jawaharlal Nehru University, he is currently the Vice
>Chancellor, Shree Sankaracharya University, Kalady, Kerala. His books
>include Against Lord and State: Religion and Peasant Uprisings in
>Malabar (Oxford University Press, 1990), Culture and Consciousness in
>modern India (Peoples Publishing House, 1990), Culture, Ideology and
>Hegemony - Intellectuals and Social Consciousness in Colonial India
>(Tulika, 1996). He has also edited a number of books including A
>Concerned Indian's Guide to Communalism (Penguin, 1999) and the ICHR
>volume on Towards Freedom, 1940, A Documentary History of the Freedom
>Struggle (unpublished and suppressed).
>
>
>
>
>
>Ajit Muricken   Satish Kalsekar  Fr. Allwyn D=92Silva
>Vikas Adhyayan Kendra  Lokavangmay Griha  Forum for Secular Democracy

_____

Shekhar Krishnan
9, Supriya, 2nd Floor
Plot 709, Parsee Colony Road No.4
Dadar, Bombay 400014
India