Скачать или смотреть Was Ancient India Democratic?

Was Ancient India Democratic?
Resource Person: Prof. Dr. Shraddha Kumbhojkar
Medium: English

Lecture Synopsis:
India has completed 75 years since becoming independent and the word 'Amritkaal' is already entrenched in the public discourse to denote the celebratory tone of the transition from the 75 years jubilee to the centenary of the republic. It is a praiseworthy achievement for the Indian nation to have imbibed the modern democratic values and to have successfully implemented them in its polity. The achievement has, however, elicited some unwarranted enthusiasm wherein serious claims are made that India is the mother of Democracy. Such claims, at best can be described as ‘inconsistent with reality’.
The proposed lecture will be an effort to check the veracity and indeed the rationale behind such claims. It will be argued that Democracy needs to be seen as an evolutionary process which does not have fixed points of origin. Proto-democratic ideas had evolved in a number of locations in ancient as also in medieval times. Modern Democracy, however, is a modern phenomenon as manifested in a number of social settings in Europe, Asia, Africa and other parts of the world including India. The cluster of social, cultural and economic factors that engender a modern democracy cannot be gainfully employed with regard to any ancient or medieval society. Though words such as Rashtra and institutions such as Sabha and Samiti are found at many places in ancient Sanskrit texts, these need not be construed to indicate the prevalence of democratic institutions, primarily because of the fluidity of meanings of the same words in different times. Such claims affect the credibility of contemporary Indian history writing, and also deny due credit to the Indian nation for its real achievements in the fields such as democratic governance, health and education.
These and many other factors warrant caution while making claims of antiquity for the Indian Democracy.

About the Speaker: Prof. Dr. Shraddha Kumbhojkar
Prof. Dr. Shraddha Kumbhojkar is a Professor of History and heads the Department of History in Savitribai Phule Pune University. She obtained a Master’s degree in History and another Master’s in Sanskrit. Then she went on to defend her doctoral thesis entitled Nationalistic Interpretations of Ancient Indian Texts: Maharashtra during 1885-1929.
In her career as a university teacher spanning over 25 years, she has developed a research interest in Ancient and Modern Indian History, European Intellectual History, Historiography,Memory Studies and Dalit Studies.
Her research articles and reviews have been published in Economic and Political Weekly, Samaj Prabodhan Patrika and Loksatta. She has presented her research in Academic Conferences in Europe, Australia, Far East and the USA. She has contributed lectures at the Gotingen University, Deusto University and Groningen University. Since the pandemic, she has delivered invited lectures at the Oxford University, The Asiatic Society of Bombay and other places of learning.

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