Philosophy as Samvada and Svaraj: Dialogical Meditations on Daya Krishna and Ramchandra Gandhi - Hardcover

If we look at the intellectual journeys of both Ramchandra Gandhi and Daya Krishna, we see in their work an attempt to represent, in interesting ways, the Indian philosophical tradition. Looking at their ideas, and getting a sense of how they chose between options at different forks in the road that they would necessarily have encountered would be very revealing. Exploring why they did, if they did, ignore the many road signs that the Western canon had erected in their minds, as they negotiated issues of ethics and public morality, would tell us a great deal of what it is to evolve a balance between the Western and the Indian philosophical currents. ... [This book] should be seen as a valuable contribution to our continuous attempt to decolonize the mind. (Peter Ronald deSouza)

Philosophy as Samvada and Svaraj discusses Daya Krishna and Ramchandra Gandhi's respective intellectual contributions and speculates how one might take forward the work of the two persons who were among the most brilliant minds of our times. Both Daya Krishna and Ramchandra Gandhi emphasized freedom and autonomy of thought and upheld the importance of samvada, somewhat inadequate in its English translation as dialogue. And both of them were philosophers concerned with how philosophy might seek its svaraj, free from the orientalist hold of the religious, the colonial crippling of indigenous languages and institutions and the structures and categories of un-freedom that continue to haunt inhabitants of West and non-West. Philosophy must involve samvada - an open dialogue and intimate encounter between self and other. Both philosophers experimented with these concepts and were enormously creative. This book is a testament not only to the core values of philosophy, but also to how these values can be carried forward by new weaves of tradition and modernity.