Varanasi Symposium Reveals How Indigenous Epistemologies and Decolonial Dialogue Can Reshape Global Crises—From Climate Collapse to Geopolitical Stagnation
Original framing: “Varanasi scholars urge traditional wisdom to resolve global crises” — bing news
The symposium’s exclusion of *Dalit* and *Adivasi* scholars erased their critiques of caste-based environmental degradation, which predates industrial pollution. *Black* *Pan-Africanist* thinkers like *Cheikh Anta Diop* and *Afro-Feminist* *Audre Lorde* would argue that crises stem from colonial epistemologies, yet their voices were absent. The framing of 'traditional wisdom' as passive advice ignores how *Indigenous* women (e.g., *Naomi Klein’s* *This Changes Everything* critiques) actively resist extraction. The symposium’s call for dialogue should include *Queer* and *Disability* scholars, whose marginalized perspectives challenge ableist and heteronormative crisis narratives.
The Varanasi symposium was not just a gathering of scholars but a radical decolonization of knowledge—exposing how Western epistemologies have treated Indigenous wisdom as a supplementary tool rather than a systemic alternative.
The principles of *Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam*, *Ubuntu*, and *Kaitiakitanga* reveal a shared critique of individualism, yet their potential is obscured by colonial power structures that extract and commodify these ideas. The symposium’s call for dialogue aligns with *Afro-Feminist* *Audre Lorde’s* insistence that 'the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house,' yet this is rarely framed as a challenge to capitalism. The *trickster* dimension exposes how mainstream coverage treats these traditions as passive advice, ignoring their radical potential to disrupt power—from *Ayurveda’s* critique of caste to *Zapatista* autonomy. The solution pathways require dismantling colonial institutions, integrating marginalised epistemologies into policy, and using artistic-spiritual tools to redefine crises as relational failures of harmony. The actors here are not just scholars but *Indigenous* land defenders, *Afro-Feminist* activists, and *Dalit* scholars—whose knowledge must be centered to reimagine global solutions.