What is a vishwaguru? Indian civilizational pedagogy as a transformative global imperative
<p>Ambitions for India to enact the role of <em>vishwaguru</em> or ‘world teacher’ are a conspicuous feature of foreign policy discourse under contemporary Hindu nationalist rule in India. This discourse, and India's foreign-policy practic...
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| Format: | Journal article |
| Language: | English |
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Oxford University Press
2023
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| _version_ | 1797109411699752960 |
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| author | Sullivan De Estrada, K |
| author_facet | Sullivan De Estrada, K |
| author_sort | Sullivan De Estrada, K |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | <p>Ambitions for India to enact the role of <em>vishwaguru</em> or ‘world teacher’ are a conspicuous feature of foreign policy discourse under contemporary Hindu nationalist rule in India. This discourse, and India's foreign-policy practice, engage the international realm with a puzzling intensity given Hindu nationalism's inward-looking and exclusionary emphasis on majoritarian cultural unity. In this article, I leverage International Relations scholarship on social closure, international order and recognition struggles to examine the historical lineages and recent articulations of nineteenth-century religious reformist ideas about India's world mission and spiritual superiority. I argue that different Indian civilizational imaginaries across time produce a pedagogical imperative, aimed at the transformation of global social hierarchies. Centred on a quest to assert social superiority and remake the terms of recognition, any given <em>vishwaguru</em> project nonetheless relies on international recognition. The recent domestic and diasporic appeal of Hindu nationalist foreign policy stems from how it appears to intervene to rectify the longstanding misrecognition of India. In this context, western liberal states' instrumental recognition of India as a democratic partner and defender of liberal order in the face of a ‘China challenge’ works to endorse and bolster the <em>vishwaguru</em> project of India's current domestic political moment.</p> |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T07:40:02Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:d729a9b4-c55b-44e8-8f84-6a8eb85ca30f |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T07:40:02Z |
| publishDate | 2023 |
| publisher | Oxford University Press |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:d729a9b4-c55b-44e8-8f84-6a8eb85ca30f2023-04-17T11:47:50ZWhat is a vishwaguru? Indian civilizational pedagogy as a transformative global imperativeJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:d729a9b4-c55b-44e8-8f84-6a8eb85ca30fEnglishSymplectic ElementsOxford University Press2023Sullivan De Estrada, K<p>Ambitions for India to enact the role of <em>vishwaguru</em> or ‘world teacher’ are a conspicuous feature of foreign policy discourse under contemporary Hindu nationalist rule in India. This discourse, and India's foreign-policy practice, engage the international realm with a puzzling intensity given Hindu nationalism's inward-looking and exclusionary emphasis on majoritarian cultural unity. In this article, I leverage International Relations scholarship on social closure, international order and recognition struggles to examine the historical lineages and recent articulations of nineteenth-century religious reformist ideas about India's world mission and spiritual superiority. I argue that different Indian civilizational imaginaries across time produce a pedagogical imperative, aimed at the transformation of global social hierarchies. Centred on a quest to assert social superiority and remake the terms of recognition, any given <em>vishwaguru</em> project nonetheless relies on international recognition. The recent domestic and diasporic appeal of Hindu nationalist foreign policy stems from how it appears to intervene to rectify the longstanding misrecognition of India. In this context, western liberal states' instrumental recognition of India as a democratic partner and defender of liberal order in the face of a ‘China challenge’ works to endorse and bolster the <em>vishwaguru</em> project of India's current domestic political moment.</p> |
| spellingShingle | Sullivan De Estrada, K What is a vishwaguru? Indian civilizational pedagogy as a transformative global imperative |
| title | What is a vishwaguru? Indian civilizational pedagogy as a transformative global imperative |
| title_full | What is a vishwaguru? Indian civilizational pedagogy as a transformative global imperative |
| title_fullStr | What is a vishwaguru? Indian civilizational pedagogy as a transformative global imperative |
| title_full_unstemmed | What is a vishwaguru? Indian civilizational pedagogy as a transformative global imperative |
| title_short | What is a vishwaguru? Indian civilizational pedagogy as a transformative global imperative |
| title_sort | what is a vishwaguru indian civilizational pedagogy as a transformative global imperative |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT sullivandeestradak whatisavishwaguruindiancivilizationalpedagogyasatransformativeglobalimperative |