Douglas Allen – Is Mahatma Gandhi’s Challenging Philosophy of Violence and Non Violence Irrelevant?

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The Department of History, Kirori Mal College in collaboration with the Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) organised a series of webinars upon the theme – The Relevance of Mahatma Gandhi in the 21st Century : Philosophies, Political ideas and Socio-Spiritual Dimensions from the 2nd to the 7th of October, 2020 to honour the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

The 4th day of this webinar series was graced by Professor Douglas Allen. Prof. Douglas is a professor of Philosophy and former Chairperson of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Maine in the U.S.A. Author and editor of 14 books and well over 100 book chapters and scholarly journal articles, he has been the recipient of Fulbright (1963-64 and 2009-10) and Smithsonian (1992) grants to India. He is often recognized as one of the world’s leading scholars in the phenomenology of religion and the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi. Prof. Douglas talked vividly about the relevance of Gandhi’s Philosophy of Non-Violence and shared his valuable insights into the same with the audience.

The webinar, that took place on the 6th of October, 2020 via the google meet platform, began at 5.30pm and was moderated by Vageesha Dubey, a final year student at the department of history, Kirori Mal College. The principal – Prof. Vibha Singh Chahuhan - extended her warmest welcome to Prof. Douglas, thus commencing the event. Sharanya Prisha, also a final year student of History at Kirori Mal College then introduced Prof. Douglas to the audience. This was followed by an address, delivered by Dr. Anshu – Convener, IQAC.

Prof. Douglas then began with his lecture and at the very outset of the lecture, he remarked that Gandhi and his philosophy has been central to him in his personal quest of non violence and then went on to describe how Gandhi had remained controversial all his life and remains even more so today. 

Through the course of his lecture, Prof. Douglas stressed upon the importance of Gandhin Philosophies in today’s day when the world is facing so much of oppression, inequality, xenophobic nationalism and environmental sustainability. Concluding his lecture, he addressed the need for all of us to engage in Gandhi's philosophies through rigorous reading and understand that even if Gandhi does not have a solution to all the problems, his principals and methods are certainly needed today and the contemporary issues can be solved by an active truthful and non violent Gandhian alternative.

His talk was followed by an extremely captivating and engaging QnA session with the audience. Prof. Douglas' rich information upon the subject was received and acknowledged very well by the audience. Dr. Shahana Bhattacharya and Dr. Amit Kumar Suman then expressed their cordial gratitude towards Prof.Allen and the occasion thus ended on a very satisfying note.


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Author:


Shambhavi Jha
Second Year, History Hons. KMC

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