EVENTS

Abstract: The concept of civilisations has been much debated by International Relations (IR) scholars in the last two decades. The publication of Samuel Huntington’s hypothesis on the ‘clash of civilizations’ in 1993 triggered wide-ranging discussions about a world order based on different but antagonistic civilisations. However, the likelihood of imminent conflicts based upon civilisational incompatibilities has been particularly challenged by the largely peaceful and mutually enriching exchanges between the Chinese and Indian civilisations for over twenty centuries. The self-perception of China and India as inheritors of their respective civilisational heritage allows them to imagine themselves as greater than ordinary nation-states. The seminar explores the impact of the civilisational legacies and the inter-civilisational exchanges on the contemporary interactions between these two Asian neighbours.

About the Author: Ravi Dutt Bajpai is a doctoral candidate at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin University, Melbourne. His thesis explores the Civilizational aspects in International Relations and contemporary China-India relations. He is a council member of the Institute of Post-Colonial Studies (IPCS) at Melbourne. He is a regular contributor to the Hindi newspaper, Prabhat Khabar on international affairs and geo-political developments.