The differences and parallels between the historical contexts of India and China and their effects on contemporary realities and issues between the two nations were the focus of a conclave of scholars that convened here today.
Titled "The Present Juncture of Historical Change: Decolonizing Asian Futures", the two-day symposium which began today is jointly presented by the ongoing Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2016 and Inter-Asia School and sponsored by Hong Kong-based Moonchu Foundation.
The conference brought leading thinkers from India and China in direct dialogue and discussion with each other. - unmediated by Western academia.
Prof Sun Ge, a political and cultural theorist from the Inter-Asia School, said "the term decolonsing did not mean rejecting, resisting or demolishing traits inherited from the West but rather confronting or engaging with problems already with us".
Prof Aditya Nigam, from the Center for the Study of Developing Societies observed that Asia was at a second moment of ecolonisation - the first being primarily the political movements and liberation struggles from the imperial regimes of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
"Intellectual decolonisation involves transcending mindsets to arrive at a newer sense of our futures, our future imaginaries, our categories of thought, for example", he said.
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