Special Online Lecture on Mahatma Gandhi and Aldous Huxley
The Department of Gandhian and Peace Studies in collaboration with Dean, Alumni Association, PU, Interdisciplinary Centre for Swami Vivekananda Studies and Department of Art History and Visual Arts, Panjab University, Chandigarh organized a special lecture of Dr. Christian Bartolf, President, Gandhi Information Center, Berlin, Germany on the topic “Mahatma Gandhi and Aldous Huxley”to celebrate the Jayanti of Mahatma Gandhi from 28th September, 2021 to 2nd October, 2021,
While welcoming the dignitaries in the webinar, Dr. Manish Sharma, Chairperson of the Department introduced the topic and speakers and other invited guests, faculty members and students and informed the gathering that it is for the first time the Department has organized a webinar on Gandhi and Aldous Huxley, though the department research scholars had given the reference of Huxley with regard to the ‘Brave New World’ but no one had tried to look into the deep philosophy of Huxley.
In his address Dr. Christian Bartolf talked about the different approaches and influences of Gandhi on Huxley and which can be seen in his writings and approach. According to him, Huxley insisted on adult education as training for creating conscious among citizens which is very significant to foster peace. The Alphabet of Peace carries the Golden Rule of peace as ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ which should ideally also be cardinal principle of human life.
Like Gandhi, Huxley also put more emphasis on the essence of Swaraj as self -rule with collective consciousness. The other highlight of the talk was that for leaders like Gandhi, Martin Luther King (Jr.), Nelson Mandela and others have practically showed that only nonviolent methods give a hope to overcome tyranny because they are superior than arms. However, nonviolence needs to be widely spread out and organised in a manner to be more effective. According to Huxley, Gandhi was not just an Idealist and man of principles but also an intensely practical politician which he proved through his weapon of Satyagraha. And soul of every Indian is still overflowing with love and respect for Mahatma as Huxley had noticed while attending the Indian National Congress’s Session. The insights given by Dr. Christian during talk have been exhaustive ranging from Buddha to Laozi. This signifies how important is peace for every human.
The event was attended by the senior faculty members of the other departments and other parts of the country also and also by the research scholars and Master students of different departments.
Professor Sanjeev Kumar Sharma, Coordinator, Interdisciplinary Centre for Swami Vivekananda Studies, Panjab University, Chandigarh proposed the vote of thanks.
