On the Perils of India's Persistent Evasion from the 'Western Enlightenment'

Abstract

It is of course not surprising that India has never seen anything similar to the European mass enlightenment during its domination under an empire which was itself a seat of historic Enlightenment movement. But it is indeed quite intriguing that India after independence has chosen to stubbornly remain intrinsically (e.g. socio-culturally and ideationally) free of the core Western enlightenment ideas and values. It is argued that this decisive historic evasion has great potential for explaining myriad bewildering social, cultural, political anomalies and dilemmas that have accumulated by now into almost gigantic proportions in the country.