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The clash of civilisations is a much debated hypothesis propounded by the American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington that states people’s cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world. Huntington argued that future wars would be fought not between countries, but between cultures, and that Islamic extremism would become the biggest threat to world peace. The phrase itself was earlier used by Albert Camus in 1946, and by Bernard Lewis in an article in the September 1990 issue of The Atlantic Monthly titled “The Roots of Muslim Rage”.

Huntington in 2004 argued that the trends of global conflict after the end of the Cold War were increasingly appearing at these civilisational divisions. Wars such as those following the breakup of Yugoslavia, in Chechnya, and between India and Pakistan were cited as evidence of inter-civilisational conflict.

In Huntington’s view, East Asian Sinic civilisation is culturally asserting itself and its values relative to the West due to its rapid economic growth. Specifically, he believes that China’s goals are to reassert itself as the regional hegemon, and that other countries in the region will ‘bandwagon’ with China due to the history of hierarchical command structures implicit in the Confucian Sinic civilisation. Huntington sees Islamic civilisation as a potential ally to China, both having more revisionist goals and sharing common conflicts with other civilisations, especially the West. Huntington argued that a “Sino-Islamic connection” is emerging in which China will cooperate more closely with Iran, Pakistan, and other states to augment its international position.

More recent factors contributing to a Western–Islamic clash, Huntington wrote, are the Islamic resurgence and demographic explosion in Islam, coupled with the values of Western universalism—that is, the view that all civilisations should adopt Western values—that infuriate Islamic fundamentalists. All these historical and modern factors combined, Huntington wrote briefly in his Foreign Affairs article and in much more detail in his 1996 book, would lead to a bloody clash between the Islamic and Western civilisations. Before Huntington, Edward Said exposed the philosophy of the colonizing nations. Said’s theory divided the world into 'orient' & 'occident' where orient was backward and inferior and needed colonizers to raise the status of the inhabitants. Keeping in mind Samuel Huntington’s theory and Edward Said’s orientalism, we should now study what the famous thinkers and philosophers of India have said about western civilisation.

Rabindranath Tagore’s observations on Western cultural values

On the political civilisation that sprang from the soil of Europe, Tagore had said, ‘It is carnivorous and cannibalistic in its tendencies; it feeds upon the resources of other peoples and tries to swallow their whole future. Before this political civilisation came to its power and opened its hungry jaws wide enough to gulp down great continents of the earth, we had wars, pillages, changes of monarchy and consequent miseries, but never such a sight of fearful and hopeless voracity, such wholesale feeding of nation upon nation, such huge machines for turning great portions of the earth into mincemeat, never such terrible jealousies with all their ugly teeth and claws ready for tearing open each other’s vitals. This civilisation is scientific, not human.”

Tagore’s 1924 voyage to Japan had been undertaken in search of “a better understanding between China, Japan and India” and “to preach the fundamental unity of the Asiatic mind”. Addressing the faculty and students of Tokyo Imperial University on June 10, 1924, Tagore had made a moving reference to Okakura, from whom he first came to learn that there was such a thing as an “Asiatic mind”.

Okakura’s 1903 book, The Ideals of the East, had a memorable first sentence: “Asia is one”. Sister Nivedita added a further embellishment in her introduction to the book. She wrote, “Asia, the Great Mother is forever one.” Asia as a space and a concept in the writings of Asian thinkers contained a creative spark absent in the European cartographic depictions of Asia.

Since the 1880s, Japanese intellectuals had begun to articulate a vision of Asian universalism that found full expression from the turn of the 20th century onwards. In April, 1907, young Japanese, Chinese, Indians, Vietnamese and Filipinos formed an Asian Solidarity Group in Tokyo.

Okakura had conveyed the spirit of Asian universalism to India. The Harvard scholar of Japanese art, Ernest Francisco Fenollosa had inspired him. Okakura first came to India in December, 1901. Once Nivedita introduced Okakura to the Tagore family in Calcutta, a cultural and political bridge between East and South Asia was forged. Nivedita lauded Okakura for having shown Asia “not as the congeries of geographical fragments that we imagined, but as a united living organism, each part dependent on all the others, the whole breathing a single complex life”. On the economic front, Japan remains an enormously positive example of an Asian model of development. Ever since the Meiji era, Japan has been a pioneer of a labour-intensive pattern of industrialisation based on concerted efforts to improve the quality of labour through a massive expansion of basic education and skills development. It was a pioneer in the field of rural industries and in its ability to industrialise while promoting inter-regional trade with East and Southeast Asia. Japan’s trajectory of rebuilding after the devastation of World War II was emulated by South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. The modes of Japanese manufacturing remain standards of best practices from which India can learn even today.

After the battle of Imphal, NetajiSubhas Chandra Bose had found one last occasion to give his views on the fundamental problems of India and Asia when he was invited to address the faculty and students at Tokyo University in November 1944. He urged Japan as the sponsor-nation of Asian regionalism to “avoid a selfish and short-sighted policy, and work on a moral basis.” The dream of an Asian universalism had been shattered in the 20th century by the conflict between Japan and China. Its fate in the 21st century will depend to a very large extent on the ability of China and India to peacefully manage their simultaneous ‘rise.’

In the context of today’s challenges, Japan shares with India a vision of a multipolar, interconnected and inter-referential Asia. Since his re-election in 2017, the Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, has modulated his country’s stance towards China’s Belt and Road Initiative, setting out conditions of transparency that would enable Japan to participate.

As we re-envision Asia for the Asian century, there is still much to learn from Japan. As Tagore wrote way back in 1932, “We are the people of Asia, grievances against Europe are in our blood. Ever since their pirates and marauders came to suck the blood of this weak continent in the eighteenth century, they have disgraced themselves before us. If a new age has dawned in Asia, let Asia give it utterance in a new authentic voice. If instead Asia merely imitates Europe’s beastly cry, were it even to be the lion’ s roar, it will be a loss.”

The Dalai Lama’s theory for spread of Buddhist Philosophy, Sanatan Dharma and Secularism of India through Indian Diaspora living abroad

Dalai Lama also emphasised creating strong Indian communities in other countries, adding that the diaspora should focus on making ‘India Town’ like ‘China Town’ created by the Chinese in other countries. He has gone on record saying, “Whenever I meet Indians in other countries, I always suggest them to preserve their culture and tradition. The Indian community should be active to make others know their culture, they have the responsibility to promote their centuries-old traditions.”

China may have political control over Tibet today, but with 400 million Buddhists in China — and many Chinese showing genuine appreciation of Tibetans’ spiritual knowledge — eventually Tibet could control China through Buddhism, according to the Dalai Lama. By respecting Chinas views on the Dalai Lama, India will be able to gain access to the 400 million Tibetan / Buddhists in China and thus increase cultural and social ties with China.

Conclusion

Thus, as Nobel Laureate Professor AmartyaSen has consistently said, India will have to follow the Japanese methodology of upgrading health and education by increasing the GDP expenditure from present 1-2% to minimum 5% (on health and education). The advanced economics of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) prospered by following the Japanese and the Chinese models. Unfortunately, Indian government’s foreign and socio-economic policies are not in tandem with China and Japan.

India’s overdependence on America and the West has always harmed it. From the 1971 Indo-Pak War, the Americans have always supported Pakistan who is their natural ally. Today, the Americans are blackmailing India to move away from our dependable neighbours like Russia and China. The British hangover of the empire and colonial mindset is firmly embedded in the Western and the American value system. Thus, India has to turn towards China and Japan and also join the BRO/CPEC projects on our terms by diplomatic negotiations and ensure India becomes an active and dynamic partner of ASEAN and a leading member of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). It is only by aligning with China and Japan that India will get the Chinese cooperation to contain Pakistan.

The author is a Kolkata-based IPS officer.

[The views expressed by the author in this article is his own.]