THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Claiming that capitalism and socialism were undergoing turbulent upheavals causing rethinking of the respective ideologies, former Maharashtra MLC Ashok G Modak said integral humanism is the third alternative for the world to overcome the current crisis of social inequality and other evils.
He was speaking at the three-day national seminar on ‘Integral Humanism: Theory and Practice’ here on Wednesday. Bharatheeya Vichara Kendram, in association with the Union Ministry of Culture, is organising the seminar to mark the birth centenary of Deendayal Upadhyaya.
Modak said integral humanism was part of the country’s culture, and that Deendayal Upadhyaya had only compiled and presented all values and ethos imbibed in it.
Upadhyaya expounded the philosophy of integral humanism in April 1965 through a series of four lectures at Mumbai, he said.
“Upadhyaya rightly concluded that India should develop its own model conducive to its ethos and appropriate for posterity. Integral humanism gives priority to the transformation of the human mindset, whereas Western ‘isms’ rely on institutional transformation for changing social order. If integral humanism believes that man is a physical-emotional-intellectual and spiritual being, Western philosophy treats man as a mere material being,” he said.
The materialist West, however, considers matter as basic and offers accommodation to all non-materialist things in the superstructure, he said.
“Western ‘isms’ assume that a human being’s happiness depends on the fulfilment of the physical and, at the most, mental and intellectual needs and demands. They thus ignore human beings’ divine or blissful aspirations.”
O Rajagopal MLA, offering felicitations, alleged that Kerala had become the soil of all ‘isms’ rejected by the people globally. “The so-called intellectuals in the state are yet to accept the changes happening all over the world and the country’s value system,” he felt.
Bharatheeya Vichara Kendram state president M Mohandas presided over the function.