At INDICA-Rashtram Centre for Cultural Leadership, we are trying to make a critique of the principles on which India’s fundamental institutions work, principles which are not Dharmic in origin and are colonial imports, principles which fuel conflict between Nature and Culture. Along with that we are also trying to propose an alternative worldview with dharma at the centre, a worldview which is Dharmic and which instructs on how Nature-Culture Continuum is practiced. We are calling it Dharmic Futures.
By Dr Pankaj Saxena, Director for Centre for Cultural Studies
Every society needs order to function. In human society this order is partly enforced by Nature and partly created by culture. While Nature enforces order through natural constraints, the order that is generated by culture has to be enforced by social institutions. It is the nature of these social institutions which decide the fate of cultures and civilizations. This is because even though initially they are the product of culture, they start shaping culture by reverse influencing society.
A culture which is not colonized has social institutions which are in harmony with its dharma, society, culture and civilization. A colonized society on the other hand has civilizational dissonance between its institution and the fundamental nature of its society. In such a society, there is a constant struggle between people and institutions; society and State; tradition and ‘modernity’.
The uncritical acceptance of colonial institutions in polity, education, economy and society in contemporary India means that we are still a colonized society using institutions which are sold as global and universal but instead espouse the paradigm of our colonial masters. This is as true about our political set up as about our academia and other institutions.
The dissonance however is deeper than its colonial origin. There is something deeply troubling with how our ‘universal’ institutions work today in ‘globalized world’. We seem to be on a head-on collision with Nature and natural order. As a result we are destroying eco-systems and disturbing ecological order in an unprecedented way.
Curiously this conflict between Nature and Culture is not a cultural universal. Different traditional cultures all over the world have managed to co-exist with Nature while evolving as a society, practicing a Nature-Culture Continuum. The ‘universal global order’ that exists today in our polity, society, education and all other spheres, is not just in conflict with Nature but also in conflict with all of these traditional alternative cultural orders. The Dharmic eco-system of India is one of these traditional orders, in conflict with the ‘global paradigm’.
At CCL we are trying to make a critique of the principles on which India’s fundamental institutions work, principles which are not Dharmic in origin and are colonial imports, principles which fuel conflict between Nature and Culture. Along with that we are also trying to propose an alternative worldview with dharma at the centre, a worldview which is Dharmic and which instructs on how Nature-Culture Continuum is practiced. We are calling it Dharmic Futures.