Tuesday, October 17, 2023

Dr. Badrinath Rao, Associate Professor of Sociology and Asian Studies from Kettering University will speak at 6:00 p.m. tomorrow at Muskegon Community College (MCC) in the Collegiate Hall on “Deciphering the India Phenomenon: Issues and Implications.” He will deliver a second talk on Thursday, October 19, at 11:45 AM in the MCC Blue and Gold Room on “What Does it Take to Build a Just Society? Insights from John Rawls.” Both events are free and open to the public and will take place at the main campus located at 221 S. Quarterline Road in Muskegon. 

The first talk, “Deciphering the India Phenomenon” on October 18, will help the audience make sense of India as a nation, a civilization, and a polity that staggers one’s imagination. Rao said, “Tritely described as the world’s largest democracy, India is a contradiction of epic proportions. Emerging from centuries of colonial rule, it has, since gaining independence in 1947, made stupendous progress in virtually all walks of life. As the world’s fifth-largest economy, India is an emerging colossus on the world stage. Yet, it remains hamstrung by civilizational imperfections, modest levels of human development, and institutional infirmities.” Rao added, “As it struggles to slough off its feudal and colonial pasts and metamorphoses into a robust world power, India presents the spectacle of a miracle in which its 1.4 billion citizens are united by an indomitable yearning to transform their destiny.”

The second talk, “What Does it Take to Build a Just Society?” will take place on October 19. Rao said, “The history of humankind is a history of countless experiments to forge an ideal institutional architecture for human flourishing. The reigning zeitgeist of our times, the one dream connecting the world community, is our desire to create a just society. This elusive quest manifests in myriad forms – benign and malignant – across the globe. It undergirds polarizing debates, political stalemates, and conflicting visions about the common good. A little over 50 years ago, John Rawls, America’s foremost moral and political philosopher, offered a seminal blueprint for constructing a just society. His notion of ‘justice as fairness’ and his philosophy of distributive justice revolutionized political philosophy and opened new vistas to reconcile competing plans for universal amelioration.” Rao added, “Now, more than ever before, as America renegotiates some of its foundational principles, the Rawlsian vision of justice can help us transcend our partisan preoccupations and unite to recreate a social framework that works for all.”