Upanishads As the Key to Peace
Atul Mishra
THE RELEVANCE OF THE IDEAS OF SWAMI VIVEKANANDA ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS by Sarup Prasad Ghosh K.P. Bagchi and Company, 2014, 351 pp., Price not stated
July 2014, volume 38, No 7

It is often noted that International Rela- tions in India does not have a culture of meaningful internal criticism. Groups of scholars may occasionally comment on policy implications of one another’s work, but scholarly criticisms that are fruitful for new knowledge are hard to find. Why? Some fault tardy work ethics of scholars; others blame the disrepair of institutions. These are important reasons. But a basic problem is of how many of us conceptualize the field. Many in India take IR to be the domain where several excesses of thought about human affairs outside the state can be committed.The ‘international’, the ‘global’, the ‘world’ and the ‘foreign’ mean similar things to them. They come equipped with the license to ‘think’ about the ‘world order’ and ‘global issues’. The enormity of their subject matter does not give them the responsibility to be rigorous. Their unregulated minds produce shoddy pieces of writing that affect the training of students who read them. The book reviewed here is an example of such writing. We appear to think of big things in shallow ways. And it shows.

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