India's way of teaching and learning is dialogic: Prof Sharma

Hyderabad: India's way of teaching and learning was dialogic and sacred texts right from Vedas to Mahabharata and Upanishads had been in dialogues, said South Asian University president Kavita A. Sharma.

"Dialogue becomes essential in South Asia because of multiplicity of speakers and cultures", she observed while delivering a talk as Guest of Honor at the valedictory session of Biennial International Conference of Comparative Literature Association of India (CLAI) in Hyderabad.

Prof. Sharma further noted that in the South Asian pluralistic context, dialogue was a shared tactic to negotiate and contest.

Comparative literature at global level was in transition where center of gravity was shifting to Indian languages, said CLAI president Prof. E V Ramakrishna in the four-day conference jointly organized by CLAI and Dept. of English, Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU).

Highlighting the need for dialogue in contemporary period, he expressed concern in his presidential address. "We live in a time where we have vad and vivad but hardly samvad", he remarked.

National Survey of India deliberately downplayed the number of Urdu speakers, like many other vernacular languages, remarked Prof. G. N. Devi while delivering Sisir Kumar Das Memorial Lecture in the conference yesterday.