[Reader-list] The Theravada Buddhist Puzzle: Rajni Kothari Lecture by Alfred Stepan

[Praveen Rai]

Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
invite you to the Rajni Kothari Lecture



*The Theravada Buddhist Puzzle: Why Inclusionary *

*Founding Doctrines and Exclusionary Contemporary Politics?*

by *Alfred Stepan*



*Rajeev Bhargava* will Chair

Friday, 2 May 2014, 6.30 pm

CSDS Seminar Hall,

29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054

Please join us for tea at 6 pm





*Rajni Kothari Lectures* are instituted in honour of the CSDS Founder
Director Professor Rajni Kothari. Earlier speakers in the series include
Professors Charles Douglas Lummis, Ramin Jahanbegloo, Sudipta Kaviraj,
Gananath Obeysekere, Rounaq Jahan, Abdellah Hammoudi, Charles Taylor, Arif
Dirlik and Shahid Amin.



The founding doctrines of Theravada Buddhism of the Buddha and Emperor
Asoka were inclusive, tolerant and non-violent. But, the central puzzles
this talk will attempt to address are: Why, the longer democracy continued,
and the more elections determined political power, did violence increase in
Theravada Buddhist Ceylon, Burma, and Thailand?  Why, in all three of these
countries did the ethno-religious-linguistic majority end up in violent
civil wars with their minority populations and the erosion of democracy?



*Alfred Stepan* is the Wallace Sayre Professor of Government at Columbia
and previously the Gladstone Professor of Government at Oxford University
and a Fellow of All Souls College. He received the Karl Deutch Award of the
International Political Science Association in 2012.



His numerous books, which have been translated into over a dozen languages,
include *Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation* with Juan
Linz and *Crafting State Nations: India and Other Multinational Democracies
*with Juan Linz and Yogendra Yadav.



*Rajeev Bhargava* is Professor at Centre for the Study of Developing
Societies.




Praveen Rai
Academic Secretary
Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
29, Rajpur Road
Delhi - 110054
Phone: 91-11-23942199
Fax: 91-11-23943450
www.csds.in