The Hindu : New Delhi News : Out to build cross-cultural bridges

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 07, 2006

New Delhi

New Delhi

Out to build cross-cultural bridges

Mandira Nayar

Anindita Balslev is here for some cross-cultural conversation...

LOOKING AHEAD: Anindita Balslev in New Delhi . - PHOTO: Rajeev Bhatt

NEW DELHI: Anindita Balslev believes there is a simple, old-fashioned solution for all the violence and strife you find in the world today: conversation.

A product of cross-cultural encounters in a way, Anindita grew up in Calcutta, when it was still called that, and then went abroad to study and married a Dane. Having done her Master's in Philosophy from Calcutta University and a doctorate from the University of Paris, she is now devoting her time to propagation and promotion of cross-cultural conversation.

"The aim of cross-cultural conversation is to help achieve human solidarity by mediating between the marginalised and dominant groups in different contexts, recognising the criteria of race, religion, ethnicity, gender, class and others,'' she says.

In Delhi now to introduce the concept of cross-cultural conversation for the first time in India, she has brought together eminent speakers from all over the world for a rather unusual conference. Starting at India Habitat Centre this coming Tuesday, the conference will be centred round the theme, "Toward Greater Human Solidarity: Options for a Plural World".

"The aim is to get a sense of solidarity for the world," she explains. "We can no longer preach any form of cultural homogenisation nor advocate a view of radical difference. The world is diverse and it is important to respect the diversity. For example, if for some strange reason Western classical music suddenly disappears from the world today, will it only be a loss for Europe or will it be a loss for the whole world?'' An author of many books, she realised long ago that there are differences or prejudices of the outside world that often encroach upon the purer world of academics too. "When I first went abroad, people from the academic world kept asking if the Indian concept of time was cyclic. I realised that they had somehow kept alive this myth so I wrote my first book, `A Study of Time in Indian Philosophy', to correct their perspective,'' she recalls.

Determined to reduce distances between perspectives and narrow down the polarity so that people across borders or even genders stop seeing each other as the enemy, she feels her upcoming conference will go a long way to build bridges that are lacking at present.

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