Volume XIII, Issue I, May 2024 - October 2024

ISSN 2319-8281

Approved by UGC and enlisted in the UGC-CARE List in Arts and Humanities section.

A Refereed (peer-reviewed) Bi-Annual National Research Journal of English Literature/Assamese/Literature/Folklore/Culture

Members of Advisory Body

Volume XIII, Issue I

• Dr. Gayatree Bhattacharyya, Former Professor, Dept. of English, University of Gauhati
• Dr. Dayananda Pathak, Former Principal, Pragjyotish College, Guwahati
• Dr. Dwijen Sharma, Professor, Dept. of English, North Eastern Hill University (Tura Campus)
• Dr. Bibhash Choudhury, Professor, Dept. of English, University of Gauhati
• Dr. Kalikinkar Pattanayak, Former Associate Professor in English, Khallikote University (Odisha)
• Dr. Anway Mukhopadhyaya, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT-Kharagpur

Members of the Editorial Body

Volume XIII, Issue I

• Dr. Soubhagya Ranjan Padhi, Dept. of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Indira Gandhi National Tribal University, Madhya Pradesh
• Dr. Manash Pratim Goswami, Dept. of Media and Communication, Central University of Tamil Nadu
• Dr. Rabi Narayan Samantaray, Dept. of English, Aeronautics College, Berhampur University
• Dr. Jayanta Madhab Tamuli, Dept. of English, M.S.S Vishwavidyalaya
• Dr. Lakshminath Kagyung, Dept. of English, Dibrugarh University
• Dr. Premila Swamy D, Dept. of English, M.S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Karnataka
• Dr. Pranjal Sharma Bashishtha, Dept. of Assamese, Gauhati University, Assam

Editorial

It’s Time for a Fresh Drive for Learning from our Indigenous Wisdom

‘Wisdom’ refers to our intuitive capability to gather insights from our experiences. Many of our traditional knowledge are indigenous-wisdom-related knowledge. The term – ‘tradition’ can be better understood when we put it against that of ‘modernity’. We use to conceptualize modernity as something which provides us with enormous power over nature and something potentially rewarding for growth of our knowledge. ‘Modernity’ as a term is also an identifying marker to be understood in terms of human development. The process of modernization in human civilization is crucial for the material prosperity of man. It is instrumental, for example, in producing technology, implements and even attitudes. In an egalitarian society also it plays a key role, for, by managing modernity in the right direction, such a society can bring about rapid economic progress. At a time, when at the backdrop of the ruthless market economy, industrialization, urbanization and half-hearted implementation of development projects the modern experience threatens to destroy everything traditional we have, there is need for some strong initiatives for adoption of crucial projects at the community level for preservation of the native cultural properties from being withered away. To say the least, it is the people who should manage modernity to their both material, cultural and spiritual well-being. Traditional knowledge is one of the signifiers about the cultural and spiritual identity of a people. Framing proper mechanisms towards protection of the indigenous traditional knowledge is therefore an important call of the hour.

Traditional wisdom passes from one generation to another. There is wisdom even when people call or consider Nature as a divine mother or when they see to different objects and aspects of Nature in terms of divinity or a mythical order. By endowing a personified principle upon all these, they indeed render a supplementary role for themselves in the conservation of the things in nature. So, the traditional wisdom, to a great extent, is based upon a community’s responses to the physical world. People look upon Nature with an amount of mixed feelings, with a sense of both awe and amazement (and a sense of indebtedness is also integral to this feeling of amazement). Man amidst the Nature is also a participant and an observer. At times, due to the unpredictability of the Nature’s activities, man was constrained to become passive; and yet, to survive or exist, man had to make complex dealings with the external world by way of yielding himself to his own tactics. Perhaps, it was at such circumstances that man had to rely upon his indigenous wisdom, which is the root or the beginning of the traditional wisdom in human civilization.

There is need of developing scientific databases to record the innumerable traditional knowledge being extant till now that could connect the dots between nature (with all its organisms), mythology and science. A large chunk of the rural people of India is still dependent upon the wealth of nature in their own bio-spaces and thanks to their traditional wisdom of paying veneration to the forests, rivers, springs and hills etc., these resources along with the animals and the numerous other organism are able to survive in spite of the gruesome threats coming from the so called projects of the modernity. Many of these knowledge retained in their memory and practiced by the communities are patentable; however, for this, proper research–based enterprises will be required. Many of these knowledge are also being zealously preserved by the communities considering them to be sacred in nature and these need to be dealt with due sensitivity. Protection of certain traditional knowledge has also become an important issue in the regime of the Intellectual Property Rights and necessary guidelines must be made in this direction by the appropriate authorities.