DELHI, INDIA, November 13, 2005: (HPI note: We are running this again with the correct date, December 17 to 20, 2005)
The Second International Conference on Religions and Cultures in the Indic Civilization is being jointly organized by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and Manushi – A Journal about Women and Society from December 17 to 20, 2005, at India Habitat Centre. Prof. Raimundo Panikkar is the President and Professors U.R. Ananthan~urty and Ashis Nandy are Co-Chairs.
Program Committee members include: Abrahim H. Khan, Aditya Behl, Arjun Bhagat, Ashis Nandy, D.L. Sheth, Kapil Kapoor, Kunal Chakravorty, Madhu Kishwar (Chair), Muzaffar Alam, Ramakant Agnihotri, R.K. Srivastava, Roddam Narasimha, Shail Mayaram, Vasudha Narayanan and Vinay Lal.
The First Conference was attended by over 450 scholars from India and abroad representing 26 countries. Apart from plenary sessions we had 55 panels over three days. For the Second Conference we have four plenary sessions and 58 panels. We are expecting 500-600 scholars and students to attend the December 2005 Conference.
The Conference aims to fill a major vacuum in the academic and cultural scene of India. India is home to virtually all the major contemporary world religions. Their interaction and dialogue has produced very creative cultural manifestations in our country. And yet, religion and culture are not studied as secular disciplines in any of our universities, whereas there are any number of Departments of Religion, including religions born in India, in North American and European Universities. This is indeed ironic that we become objects of study by others but make no serious academic effort to understand our own culture and religious traditions. People’s ignorance about their past heritage makes it easy for vested interests to manipulate religious sentiments for partisan purposes.
Our Conference series is part of a larger vision of catalyzing interest in Indic studies and marks the beginning of an important new process that has far reaching implications for the political, cultural and intellectual well being of India. We are endeavouring to make both the Conference as well as commissioning of new studies an ongoing project based at the CSDS. The Conference series is enabling us to create a countrywide and global network of scholars who meet periodically to figure out ways to promote study of religions and cultures as a rigorous academic discipline within India and give new directions to its study abroad.
The core grant for this Conference has come from the Infinity Foundation. In addition, Indian Council for Cultural Relations and Jammu University are supporting as cosponsors of the event. The conference is, however, still in need of additional funding. If you can help, kindly contact the conference convenor, Madhu Kishwar, at “source” above.