SUGDEN ORATION 2023
Gandhi: ‘Truth and Non-Violence’
with
Professor Bindu Puri
Professor of Centre for Philosophy, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
EVENT DETAILS
Thursday 27 April 2023
5.30pm for 6:00pm followed by drinks and canapés
Queen’s College, Parkville, Junior Common Room
Onsite parking is not available; Uber, taxi, trams recommended.
ORATION SYNOPSIS
At a time when various parts of the world are experiencing war or the threat of war revisiting the message of Gandhi on non-violence on the 75th anniversary of his death is timely. In this lecture our 2023 Sugden Fellow, Professor Bindu Puri of JNU, New Delhi, will explore views on Satya or truth implying openness, honesty and fairness. Satya is inseparable from Ahimsa which is an ancient Indian concept best expressed as non-violence. Gandhi made these concepts his own “by moulding tools for nonviolent action to use as a positive force in the search for social and political truths. Gandhi formed Ahimsa into the active social technique, which was to challenge political authorities and religious orthodoxy.” Gandhi had many heroes in his pursuit of non-violence and drew particularly from the Russian author, Leo Tolstoy. He said of Tolstoy’s, The Kingdom of God Is Within that it overwhelmed him. “Before the independent thinking, profound morality, and the truthfulness of this book,” he wrote, “all books seemed to pale into insignificance.” Ultimately, while influenced by Tolstoy, Professor Puri will argue that Gandhi’s thinking on non-violence was rooted in ancient Indian philosophy. Gandhi’s relevance for our times is confirmed by the thought that today, seventy five years after his death, the call for ahimsa/non-violence seems both relevant and timely.
Professor Bindu Puri
Bindu Puri is a professor of Indian Philosophy at the Centre for Philosophy, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her main interests are in the areas of contemporary Indian philosophy and moral and political philosophy. Puri has over 57 papers in edited anthologies and philosophical and interdisciplinary journals; including Sophia, Philosophia and the Journal of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research. She has authored three monographs; Gandhi and the Moral Life (2004) The Tagore-Gandhi Debate: On Matters of Truth and Untruth (Sophia: Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures, Vol. 9, Springer 2015); and The Ambedkar-Gandhi Debate: On Identity, Community and Justice (Singapore: Springer Nature, 2022). Her most recent book, co-authored with Professor Mrinal Miri, Gandhi For the 21st Century: Religion, Morality and Politics is currently in press with Springer Nature Publications. She has eight edited volumes, the most recent being Reading Sri Aurobindo – Metaphysics, Ethics and Spirituality (Singapore: Springer Nature, 2022). She has presented over 160 papers and lectures at national and international forums. Professor Puri is a Fellow of the Australia India Institute, University of Melbourne and a member of the editorial boards of eminent journals of philosophy like Sophia and Philosophia. She delivered the prestigious annual ‘M K Gandhi lecture on Peace and the Humanities’ 2017 for the Mahatma Gandhi Peace Council of Ottawa, Canada as well as the ‘Johnson and Hastings Lectures’ at the University of Mount Allison in Canada for the same year.
ABOUT SUGDEN INSTITUTE
Dr Edward Holdsworth Sugden (1854-1935) was first Master of Queen’s College. It has been said of Sugden that he combined the evangelical zeal of Wesley and the humanism of the university tradition. As such his engagement with Church, university and community through the College was of equal importance to him. One of his friends described him as a man of the world, a man of science, a musical enthusiast and a universal favourite. He was the Master of Queen’s for forty years and an important figure within the life of the University and Melbourne. He was a trustee of the Public Library, the Museum, the National Gallery of Victoria and first chairman of Melbourne University Press.The Sugden Institute has been established within Queen’s to build the academic profile of the College through increasing the number of visiting academics and encouraging public intellectual debate.
