JAN 10, 2009

DIALOGUE AMONG CIVILIZATIONS 

Dr. Yayati Madan G. Gandhi(1940) is an outstanding educationist, litterateur and 
publicist who has been in the vanguard of many movements for sustainable 
environment, total disarmament, human rights and one­world mankind. A visiting 
fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge he has made an outstanding contribution in 
the field of teaching and research in political theory, third world studies and 
international politics. 

A winner of Tagore Award in poetry in 1961, Dr. Gandhi is the Founder­President of 
the Poetry Society of India and authored eleven volumes of poetry entitled Ashes 
and Embers, Kundalini, Luteous Serpent, Petals of Flame, Freak Stair, Meandering 
Maze, Ring of Silence, Shunyata in Trance, Haikus and Quatrains, Enchanting 
Flute, and The Imperiled Earth. On his Poetry, one Ph.D. Thesis 'EWAFE' Motif in 
Madan G. Gandhi's Poetry' has been awarded Doctorate.
Book Review

DIALOGUE AMONG CIVILIZATIONS

Edited by Dr. Yayati Madan G. Gandhi

Published by GANDHI EARTH VISION FOUNDATION 

First published in 2004
ISBN No. : 81­88871­00­1
Price : Rs. 200/­
Pages : 182/­
E­mail : southasianews@rediffmail.com

The book makes a powerful plea for Dialogue of Civilization as against Samuel 
Huntington's thesis concerning the Clash of Civilization.

Dialogue is best fitted to unravel the commonality of human concerns and endeavors 
and is the surest way to transform the myriad discords into harmony of living ­an 
art which each one of us can learn to contribute to the common wellbeing. It brings 
out the most often forgotten truth that in life there are far more threads that unite 
than those that divide. No man or a civilization is an island but a current in the 
ocean of mankind. Bound by fraternal bonds all human beings are sharers in one 
common indivisible destiny. Poverty, illiteracy, political violence, pollution, the 
danger of thermo­nuclear confrontation etc. are some of the obvious enemies of 
mankind. These problems are not peculiar to any one particular civilization but 
transcending cultural and national frontiers they affect every one. 

Today when mankind is confronted with a grim scenario involving clashes of 
national self interest, religious fundamentalism rooted in dogma and ignorance, 
ethnic and racial prejudices, dialogue can be a well trusted means of laying the 
groundwork of a new world order in which the least developed and most 
disadvantaged among the peoples can have an effective voice. Dialogue holds the 
prospect of converting confrontation to cooperation, depleting environment to 
sustainable environment, sectarian clashes to harmonic co­existence, fratricidal 
strife to fratricidal harmony. Dialogue is promotive of civic culture, social capital, 
democratic freedoms, human rights and social justice. It fosters peaceful living 
among people belonging to different religions, belief systems, cultures, races and 
civilizations. Dialogue holds fast to the human dimension and re­inforces the 
humane values of civilization. It inculcates rational scientific temper and contributes 
to creativity, adventure of ideas, respect for dissent and diversity, values of 
democracy, humanism, peace, understanding, adjustment and a sense of human 
brotherhood.

The book contains readings and excerpts from writings and speeches of notable 
thinkers, publicists and experts will, it is hoped, illumine some of the gray areas of 
the contemporaneous debate and will let us share mankind's common enduring 
concerns. The insights and harmonizing threads running through various cultures 
may help convert the clash of civilizations into the dialogue among civilizations, a 
phrase coined by His Excellency Mr. Mohammed Khatami, The President of Islamic 
Republic of Iran.

Thanks to the communication and information revolution, the world has shrunk into 
a global village. A true knowledge of what the West and Asia think on the crucial 
issues common to mankind will help resolve many tensions and discords which have 
their basis in prejudice and fear of each other born out of ignorance. It will give a 
fillip to improvement of political, economic and cultural relations between them. In 
the Asian mirror Europe can see its own past with its philosophic and cultural 
moorings, which largely are common and inseparable from those of Asia.

If the West engages in a profound and sincere dialogue with the Orient it will find 
practical and efficacious solutions to many of its problems such as the crisis of 
family, man­nature relationships, the crisis in ethics and values with a direct bearing 
on scientific research.

Asia is brimming with love for humanity, sense of tolerance, serenity and balance in 
human relations because of the continuous and profound dialogue at a deeper level 
among the congeries of peoples of diverse races, religions and cultures inhabiting 
this continent ­­Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, Sikhs and Parsis­­who have 
been living in fraternal harmony since several centuries. The world­view of the 
ancient Hindu sages and seers embraced the whole world and considered it one 
family. To realize this goal in today's world a dialogue among civilization is the 
imperative need of our times. 

Dialogue among civilizations

 Dr. Sushma Gandhi

Professor-Chairperson
Deptt. of Communication , Management and Technology
Guru Jambeshwar University, Hissar

Dialogue among civilizations is deeply embedded in the Indian

tradition of truth peace and non-violence. It believes in equal
respect of all religions and inter-faith and intrafaith dialogue
to crystiallize the truths common to all religions and to
inculcate these among all peoples. It affirms that relations
between humans are not to be based on might and coercion
but on right, rationality and dialogue. Such a dialogue among
civilizations has to be based on equality and mutual respect
between nations and peoples.
Dialogue can begin only when one respects the other party and
considers him his or her equal. Where the relationship is
between the dominant and dependent, there cannot be any
viable dialogue, nor can there be a dialogue between a ruler
and his subject. That is why in the phase of colonialism, the
subject peoples and races came to be accorded an inferior
status in day-to-day relationships. Such mindset of the
colonical rulers ascerbated discrimination, exploitation and
injustice rendering the ground fertile for oppression, violence
and war. The tendency to use human beings as mere means of
self-aggrandisement and subservient to the powers elites’
ambition to dominate the weak and poor has significantly
contributed to wars in human history. Placing dialogue in a
position of prestige would mean acceptance of equality among
individuals and nations.
Dialogue can help identity and discover commonality of
interests and the areas where agreement may be possible. By
minimizing differences and extending an area of peace,
dialogue can become a means of refinement, perfection and
progress for individuals and collectivities. Since dichotomy or
contradiction may naturally arise among peoples belonging to
differing milieus, dialogue may help convert it into consensus
and accommodation for the benefit of both the parties. This
way a new era of peace and prosperity can begin for the
beleaguered humanity. But this would require going to our
roots and drawing on our cultural springs of rationality and
wisdom.
It would be a great disservice to both reason and religion
if we are not able to see the inherent complementarity
between them. It is wrong to hold that we can either live by
religion or reason. The fact is that reason enables us to truly
understand some of the deeper nuances of religion. Reason is
a very powerful tool that God has given to man. Yet a man of
faith or a religious person is in need of reason as much as the
one who swears by reason. However at the same time he
knows that reason has its own limitations. Undeniably a
believer in god has two books i.e.of reason and revelation
while a man of reason has only one. The latter bows only at
the altar of reason and lets everything else be subordinate to
it. He possesses only the book of nature to fall back upon and
invoke its aid.
Dialogue in Human communication have been
instrumental in creating and expanding the the reservoirs of
knowledge within a human being and his outer world. They
deepen one’s consciousness and awaken him/her to self
knowledge and let so him/her think that he/she too exists as a
sentient being interacting with other living organisms and the
environment. They together enact a multi-partite approach for
reaching out and becoming a part of the outer world which is
ever in a state of flux. They invest human life with a dynamic
aspect, a power to confront, reality and liberate human
essence from the ever-loosening grips of those who wish to
appropriate it so that they could set themselves as the sole
proprietors of truth.
 Dialogue of civilization involves both listening and talking
for creating a true conversation. But here listening is no less
important because before you talk you must understand the
others’ viewpoint. For the discourse to acquire scientific
character dialogue has to be a conscious effort to discover the
relationships of subjects with each other and for this reason,
it has to be thoroughgoing appraisal of the others’ positive
aspects as well as one’s own limitations. To that extent
scientific dialogue proceeds at the level of man’s self-
consciousness.
In art and religion our Higher Self and even God is
addressing the human self at the conscious level. In the same
way the artist and a man of religion at the time of creating
art and praying respectively are both communing with the
Creator. Man is elevated by the divine call that he hears deep
within his consciousness which makes him a person in the real
sense of the term with the essential human attributes.
Both individualism and collectivism are important but
they have to focus on the advancement and happiness of the
human person. For the individual human being is the starting
point of all quest and is also the touchstone of the success of
all human institutions, laws, social relations, civil rights, and
to cap all, human rights. The philosophical roots of both
individualism and collectivism are the same. Individual
persona is the starting point of the both and also the measure
of all human progress. Viewed from the vantage point of
spiritual wisdom, whatever divergences and antagonisms that
exist between individualistic liberalism and collectivistic
liberalism are ‘superficial and incidental’.
Hindu mysticism considers the human persona to be a
world unto himself or herself-- a microcosm which has the
imprint of macrocosm in its meta-conscious. Man’s creativity
and his existential truth of the self is within and does not
emanate from his individuality or collectivity. The ultimate
source of his validity is that he is addressed by the Voice
Divine which invests a human person with the power of
transcendence. With this new-found transcendence a new
realisation dawns that he or she is not body alone but a soul
too. Also with this realization all chains that bind him or torn
and suddenly he or she wakes up in a brave new world of
justice and humanity.
Man, to Vedic seers, was a free being, divine in essence.
They did not enjoin that he should turn his back from the world
but participate in it as in a festival of rejoicings since both the
nature and the world were waiting to receive him with open
arms. This reciprocal openness and opening up connoted their
meeting in an enduring and fulfilling dialogue among the
creatures of one God.
This Eastern world-view is strikingly different from the
Western world-view which celebrates man’s conquest of nature
and calls it progress. Not satisfied with subjugating nature the
western man proceeds to impose his will on human
communities. This phase which had been one of the longest
and bloodiest in human history is associated with European
domination and is known as colonialism. Essentially its origin
may lie in Western man’s approach towards nature, the natural
sciences and the humanities. His entire approach is basically
domineering when we compare it with the pristine Hindu,
Islamic and oriental societies” approach to these question.
The critique of modernity must proceed from this premise
which lays emphasis on humanitarian and ethical approaches
and leans heavily on the humane values of civilization.
It would be unwise and retrogressive to turn our
gaze to the past when the world around us is forging ahead to
the ever-beackoning future. Nonetheless we may revert to the
past to discover our roots, and to draw sustenance and
strength from it and also to cope with the challenges and
demands of the future.
Admittedly the world is continuously being transformed
by advances in science and technology, communication and
information sciences in particular. It will be foolhardiness on
our part if we choose to shut ourselves in a dream-world of our
own or in our exclusivism, cut ourselves off from the
energising and creative forces shaping a new world. Even if we
wish to revive and renew our past grandeur and greatness we
will have to master, and draw benefit from, the positive
achievements of the human mind.
The edifice of civilization rests on human reason, new
scientific discoveries and inventions. Our present is but the
fruit of our past and our actions in the present are going to
determine our future. Societies of the orient like India have
very rich religious and spiritual traditions. The need is to
pursue our goal of development and modernization by
retaining the inherent spirituality in our cultural heritage in
our present day civilizational accomplishments.
Our point of departure from that of Western liberalism is
that the positive goal of freedom and development that it
seeks to set before the human society is woefully devoid of
the spiritual content which continues to inform, though in a
lesser degree, every crucial aspect of the oriental societies.
That is why the progress in the West though it has been mind-
boggling, it has remained truncated, lopsided, discriminatory
and ruthless in many respects—a fact admitted also by some
notable western social scientists themselves.
Indian seers considered freedom as the hallmark of
religion. Without freedom religion becomes a means of human
enslavement. For religion is a cradle of culture, the nursery of
the advancement of reason and the school for the cultivation
of liberality, freedom and progress.One accomplished in
politics has to have the wisdom of a statesman to adopt and
adapt the new sciences and technological innovations for the
greater good of mankind. To achieve this, we need to draw on
unreservedly all that is life-giving and energising in our past
and to use that for the wellbeing of all. It is the on-going
dialogue that will secure access for us in other civilizations
and cultures. Since our past identity is our strength, therefore,
the need of the times is to put it to good use through a life of
wisdom and reason. Similarly by responding to other
civilizations and cultures creatively, interactively and with an
open arms we can enrich our own civilization and culture by
assimilating the positive accomplishments of other
civilizations.
Thanks to the communication and information revolution,
the world has shrunk into a global village. A true knowledge of
what the West and Asia think on the crucial issues common to
mankind will help resolve many tensions and discords which
have their basis in prejudice and fear of each other born out of
ignorance. It will give a fillip to improvement of political,
economic and cultural relations between them. In the Asian
mirror Europe can see its own past with its philosophic and
cultural moorings, which largely are common and inseparable
from those of Asia.
If the West engages in a profound and sincere dialogue
with the Orient it will find practical and efficacious solutions to
many of its problems such as the crisis of family, man-nature
relationships, the crisis in ethics and values with a direct
bearing on scientific research.

Asia is brimming with love for humanity, sense of tolerance,

serenity and balance in human relations because of the
continuous and profound dialogue at a deeper level among
the congeries of peoples of diverse races, religions and
cultures inhabiting this continent --Hindus, Muslims,
Buddhists, Christians, Sikhs and Parsis—who have been living
in fraternal harmony since several centuries. The world-view of
the ancient Hindu sages and seers embraced the whole world
and considered it one family. To realize this goal in today’s
world a dialogue among civilization is the imperative need of
our times.