Kabir Bhajans

By Kaluram Bamaniya from Malwa, Madhya Pradesh

Accompanied by Santosh Saroliya (violin); Ram Prashad Parmar (harmonium); Devidas Bairagi (dholak); Sajjan Singh Parmar (nagadi); and Uttam Singh Bamaniya (manjira)

 

Amit Baruah will introduce the group

 

Kaluram Bamaniya and his group will focus on two key Kabir dohas – of love and unity as well as that of questioning the given order

 

 

Discussion on Oliver Tambo and His Contribution to the Freedom Struggle in South Africa

Speakers: Ambassador Shiv Shankar Mukherjee, former Indian High Commissioner to South Africa and Britain; Prof. Rajen Harshe, President, G.B. Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad and former Vice-Chancellor, Allahabad University; Prof. S.N. Malakar, Centre for African Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University; and H.E. Mr. France Morule, High Commissioner of South Africa

 

Chair: Shri Suhas Borker, Editor CFTV News

 

(Collaboration: Working Group on Alternative Strategies)

 

 

 

Village Also Speaks Through Poetry

Readings in Hindi by Divik Ramesh

 

A Critical Appreciation by Dr. Durga Prasad Gupta, Professor, Department of Hindi, Jamia Millia Islamia

 

Chair: Dr. Ganga Prasad Vimal

 

(Collaboration: The Poetry Society, India)

 

 

 

The Botanical Heritage of India

Exhibition based on the Indian Natural History Collections in Botany and Meteorology showcasing specimens and literatures that depict some of the most crucial chapters of botanical history of India and the world during which the order of the modern natural world was shaped. On view are copies of paintings and drawings by botanical artists of species discovered by Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew and corresponding artefacts from the archives of Botanical Survey of India; a collection of the Bengali manuscripts known as Puthi, one of the earliest records of indigenous knowledge of plants and their medicinal values. The exhibition also celebrates the life and work of Indian Botanist, Janaki Ammal Edavaleth Kakkat 

 

Inauguration on Thursday, 26 October 2017 at 17:30

 

(Collaboration: Botanical Survey of India; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; and Centre for World Environmental History, University of Sussex)

 

 

Indian Coffee House: Then and Now

A talk by Dr. Bhaswati Bhattacharya, Resident Fellow, Centre for Modern Indian Studies,, Goettingen  and author of  Much ado over Coffee: Indian Coffee house, Then and Now (pub : New Delhi- Social Science Press, 2016)

 

Chair: Dr. Narayani Gupta

 

Gandhi, Hinduism and Humanity

Speaker: Dr. Faisal Devji, Reader in Indian History, University of Oxford

 

Chair & Discussant: Dr. Avijit Pathak , Professor in Sociology, Jawaharlal Nehru University

 

As a critic of modern civilization Gandhi was deeply suspicious of its desire for universality. While universal ideals like freedom, therefore, were enthusiastically taken up by many anti-colonial thinkers, the Mahatma focused instead on their darker aspects and links with imperialism. And yet he refused to become a partisan for the particular either, recognizing it as a category belonging to the universal as well. Hinduism provided Gandhi with an important example of a phenomenon that he thought might avoid the violence of the universal while at the same time denying relegation to a mere particularity. This lecture will explore how Gandhi posed Hinduism against what he saw as the violent appeal to humanity as a universal ideal, looking in particular at his understanding of three contentious issues: caste, conversion and cow protection

 

(Collaboration: South Asian University and Society and Culture in South Asia)

 

 

 

 

Trials, Tribulations and Triumphs

A discussion on Prof. T.K. Oommen’s book Trial, Tribulations and Triumphs: Life and Times of a Sociologist (New Delhi: Konarak Pub. 2017)

 

Chief Guest: Shri M. Hamid Ansari, former Vice-President of India

 

Speakers: Dr. T.N. Madan, Emeritus Professor, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi; Dr. George Mathew, Chairperson, Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi

 

Chair: Justice Rajinder Sachar, Retired Chief Justice of Delhi High Court

 

(Collaboration: Konark Publishers)

 

 

BBC and India: War, Independence and Partition

Speaker: Dr. Chandrika Kaul, Senior Lecturer in Modern History, University of St Andrews, Scotland

 

Chair: Professor Gita Bamezai, Head, Department of Communications Research, Indian Institute of Mass Communications

 

The BBC has had a long association with India. As we celebrate the 70th anniversary of Indian Independence, this talk will focus on the climactic 1940s and discuss the BBC’s coverage during the Second World War, Indian Independence and Partition

 

 

CREEDS OF OUR TIMES

Curated by Rajiv Mehrotra

 

The Long Search - VI

A film presented by Ronald Eyre

 

Taoism: A Question of Balance-China (52 min; English)

In our search for Chinese religious experience, we go to Taiwan. A whole pantheon of gods, both local and imported from the mainland, are worshipped in thousands of Buddhist and Taoist temples. Several strands make up the religious life of the village: A Confucian respect for past and the ancestors, the cosmic pattern of the Tao that permeates all levels of existence and manifests itself through oracles, the local gods who dispense justice and favours, and the hungry ghosts of the dead who have be placated

 

Alternative Lifestyles in California: West meets East   (52 min; English))

The spiritual impulse of the time steps beyond the boundaries of religious tradition – so wrote Theodore Roszak, spokesman for the counter-culture, who is Ronald Eyre’s guide to the new religious concerns of people living in the San Francisco Bay area. Here religious ideas and life styles of East and West mingle and people brought up in largely Christian culture climate look East to Taoism and Hinduism for inspiration

 

(Collaboration: Foundation for Universal Responsibility of H.H. The Dalai Lama)

 

Conflicts, Post Conflicts and Peoples’ Memory

 

 

In the Third and final part of the series on Conflicts, Post- Conflicts and Peoples’ Memory: A panel discussion in three parts, the focus shifts to contemporary pieces of artistic expression that strive towards reflection on the memory of the past. Focusing on three other powerful visual mediums of subversion, remembrance and commemoration – documentaries, graffiti and murals – with a focus on Latin American history. During the 1970s and 80s, Latin Americans have had to face, suffer and resist some of the most brutal dictatorships; dictatorships that unleashed widespread repression, torture and killings. In an attempt to communicate, and remember people began to use city walls and buildings to vent out their feelings of angst, as a way of protest against political oppression. From this grew a history of graffiti and murals – forms of street art and cultural expression – that enjoy currency till date. The panel will share some examples of graffiti from Argentina and murals from Chile in an attempt to show how the pieces not only celebrate the revolutionary period of the 1970s and 80s but also convert them into tools of subversion used by contemporary artists to negotiate with present day politics.