It was another attempt made by the Madhya Pradesh government to globalise RSS philosophy. Earlier during the Simhastha state government also organised a massive brain storming event which was inaugurated by the RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat and Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself was the chief guest of the valedictory session. Observers feel that the state government spent huge sums on RSS inspired activities.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan while inaugurating an exhibition explained in detail objective of the event. He said the Indian culture and public life had multiplicity of joy and emotional attachments to our traditions. “Due to blind westernisation and the modern way of life, happiness and liveliness have been alienated,” he said.

Eminent thinkers and practitioners participated in the national-level conclave. “It is a public discourse platform to share, brainstorm and perorate on contemporary issues of the country. Nationalism, aspirations, social justice and harmony through empathy and sensitisation which would culminate into social mobility through development was the moving mantra of the convention,” claimed Deepak Sharma, coordinator of the Manthan.

J Nandkumar, prachar pramukh of RSS, said, “The objective of the conclave was to give clarity and vision through an intellectual churning by the people. Another important aim was to decolonise Indian minds, especially the young ones.”

Some of the thinkers who participated in the event included author Acharya David Frawley, Indian-American author and Hindu activist Rajiv Malhotra, Canadian writer, secularist and activist Tarek Fateh, politician, writer and journalist Ram Madhav, British journalist and political commentator Tufail Ahmad, Union Minister Smriti Irani, actor Anupam Kher, film director Madhur Bhandarkar, member of Rajya Sabha Shahid Siddiqui.

For happiness, one has to return to the roots, to the self, and not to material things, was Juna Akhara chief Swami Avdheshanand Giri’s advice to Madhya Pradesh’s recently created Happiness department. Swami Giri touched upon this point, saying that these days, people believe more in looking good than being good and having more followers and likes on social media. “The real goodness comes from having good thoughts.” He also said that despite colonising India for a long time, the British could not “win our hearts”.

On the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, the Swami said though it would cause inconvenience to people for some time, in the long run, it will be very good for the society and will help in checking corruption.

'It was not just British, but even Mughals had colonised India', noted right-wing scholar Rajiv Malhotra. Calling for a “surveillance mechanism” to keep a tab on Western Indologists. The remark could trigger a fresh debate over the narratives around Indian culture and religion, especially Hinduism.

The Indian-American researcher and author of ‘Academic Hinduphobia’ was speaking at the post-inaugural plenary session. ‘Decolonising Indian Minds’ was the theme of the session. “Many in India do not consider Mughals as a coloniser because of certain cultural aspects and also for not leaving behind any text on India, which can be called Indology text,” he said, adding this limited definition of colonisation is a serious issue. Malhotra accused Western academicians of presenting a distorted view of India’s history and its contribution, saying the notion of Aryan-Dravidian divide too was created by Europeans in 1800s for which India continues to suffer. Claiming unlike China India never bothers about what foreigners are researching or writing about it, he said there should be scrutiny of studies conducted by outsiders on the country.

Rise of the so-called “Hindu right” is merely a backlash over the centuries of oppressions and attacks on their religious identity, observed David Frawley, an acclaimed American scholar on Hinduism and Vedic tradition. Speaking to media on the sidelines of the conclave, Frawley said, “The so-called rise of Hindu right is mostly an exaggeration. Moreover, I don’t believe in such terms like Right and Left. As a practicing American Hindu and a vegetarian, I am considered a Rightist in India, while in US, I am considered a Leftist. So, all these are just terms.”

Frawley, who was conferred India’s third highest civilian award, the Padma Bhushan, in 2015 for his works on Vedic tradition, also rubbished the claim of growing intolerance in the country saying Hindus traditionally have been very tolerant. “Hindus are not fundamentalists. They also don’t go for forced conversions,” he said.

Striking a discordant note, Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Murli Manohar Joshi said globalization has a fundamental defect as it is based on Semitic philosophy, which believes in a separate creator and exploitation of Nature for consumption by man. Joshi was addressing the plenary session on ‘nationalism in the era of neo-liberalism and globalization’. The other speaker was economist and NITI Aayog member Dr Bibek Debroy.
Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan chaired the session.

“According to some thinkers, globalization is not working for the poor and the environment as fundamentals are wrong and defective. “Unlike Western concept of globalization, which is reductionist and mechanistic, our concept of globalization is holographic and inclusive,” Joshi said. Indian civilization ethoses are based monistic philosophy, he said. “We think divinity pervades the whole existence and as so we have reverence for all. Semitic religion believes in a separate creator and in… consumption and exploitation.”

Talking about how globalization was affecting the society the world over, he said on one side there is excess of money and on the other there is lack of it. “Globalization affects cultures and makes society unstructured whereas in India, family is our basic and very important unit,” he said.

Union textiles minister Smriti Irani said there was no need to pit modernity against tradition as both can go hand in hand, recalling how she used the hashtag #Iwearhandloom on Twitter to promote handloom clothes, terming it a great success. (IPA Service)