Philosophy As Samvada and Svaraj: Dialogical Meditations On Daya Krishna and Ramchandra Gandhi

This book discusses Daya Krishna and Ramchandra Gandhi’s respective intellectual contributions and speculates how one might take forward the work of the two persons who were among the most brilliant minds of our times.

Both Daya Krishna and Ramchandra Gandhi emphasized freedom and autonomy of thought and upheld the importance of samvada, somewhat inadequate in its English translation as dialogue. And both of them were philosophers concerned with how philosophy might seek its svaraj, free from the orientalist hold of the religious, the colonial crippling of indigenous languages and institutions and the structures and categories of un-freedom that continue to haunt inhabitants of the West and non-West. It emphasizes that philosophy must involve samvada—an open dialogue and intimate encounter between self and other.