“Conceptualizing Contemporaneity of Gandhi”

Center Director, Prof. Paul Bueno de Mesquita gave the keynote address at the International Webinar on “Conceptualizing Contemporaneity of Gandhi.” This one-day conference on August 25, 2020, was jointly sponsored by the Department of English at Rajiv Ganshi University, Arunachal Pradesh, India, The Gandhi King Global Initiative, and the Gandhi King Foundation. The lead organizer and facilitator was Sri Prasad Gollannapalli. It was attended by 276 international participants representing faculty, researchers, and professionals in the field of nonviolence and peace.

Bueno de Mesquita’s talk focused on Gandhi’s ideas being most relevant in the 21st century because they were carried forward by Dr. King in the American Civil Rights Movement. The lecture discussed the historical connections linking back to the American roots of nonviolence as a practical way of communal living, espoused by Rhode Island-born Aiden Ballou in the early 1800s. Ballou’s ideas found their way in letters to Leo Tolstoy, who eventually corresponded with Gandhi who credited Tolstoy’s nonviolence thinking as his greatest influence. Other speakers included Prof. Clayborne Carson, Director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Education & Research Institute at Stanford University, USA; Prof. Naresh Kuman Sharma from the University of Hyderabad, India; Prof. Isao Takagi from Soka University, Japan; Prof. Michael Honey-Haley from the University of Washington, USA; and David Kirshbaum, Nonviolence International Representative to the United Nations, NY, USA.