A comparison of course curriculum of Chinese studies and Indian studies in the Harvard University is like comparing night and day. If you look at the topics of public talk on China, the available courses on Chinese civilisation and dissertations on China and contrast these with the Indian studies, it will reveal to you how China is projecting itself very positively in the world while India is not. The Chinese have established hundreds of Confucian study chairs worldwide. They have done this with the help of the Chinese government and their private sector and entrepreneurs. China Institutes exist in San Francisco, New York and many other places in the US. The Chinese insist that they have their own strain of modernization which is different from Westernization. They assert that their youths are modernizing rapidly but they have their own approach to modernity which is uniquely Chinese. This approach rejects the notion that to modernise the Chinese youths have to mimic the West. The Chinese modernize using all consumables and modern technological marvels, but they make sure that there is a quintessentially Chinese philosophical and civilizational ethos behind their modernity. In India, on the other hand, we often hear the debate if Indians should remain traditional or become modern. This argument implies that modernity and tradition are opposites that cannot be reconciled and if we have to become modern, we have to essentially become Westernized. This means that we are incapable of becoming modern in the Indian context. Unlike the Chinese, we Indians lack a civilizational approach to modernity that is uniquely Indian. An Indian approach to modernity is considered an oxymoron in India, but the Chinese openly assert that they have their own version of modernity built around the essence of Chinese civilisation. They see no problem in being modern and Chinese at the same time. But Indians keep confusing modernity with Westernisation and abandonment of indigenous Indian traditions..................
Posted on: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 05:29:50 +0000
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