 Gautam Chakrabarti (New Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University)
"From the Diasporic to the "Glocal": Indic Beliefs
and "Western" Perceptions"
With the growth in diasporic empowerment and "national" consolidation, the
"Indic Weltanschauung" is regaining its rightful place in the era of Globalisation; however, there are issues regarding the capability of this almost-unique way-of-life to weather the transmogrifying and homogenising processes of a "Brave New World".
The Pentagon's quadrennial Defence Review Report, in February 2006, stated that "India is emerging as a great power and key strategic partner"; and hailed "[s]hared values as long standing, multi-ethnic democracies [that] provide the foundation for continued and increased strategic cooperation and represent an important opportunity for [the] two countries," Will Indic society be able to fortify its socio-cultural specificities and "glocalise" pan-Earth trands? Will Indian polity rise up to the challenges of Islamic terrorism, internal unrest, societal churning and generational shift/s? Will increasing Euro-American support and recognition,
both politico-economic and socio-cultural, for the "Emerging Power" result in India being co-opted into the "Western" side of the Huntingtonian
divide?
These are some of the questions that will be discussed in the proposed talk, in the light of the speaker's felt experiences as an academic based in India, Finland and Russia; besides, the perceptions, both noetic and experiential, of "Western" and Russian interlocutors of "The Continent of Circe" will be taken into account.
In a nutshell, this talk will attempt to establish the matrix of inter penetrations between the Indic and Euro-American worlds, as should be of interest to a primarily-Russian audience; the goal is to analyse a new Indic "machtpolitik".
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