<Research Notes>Anti-Racism and Spiritual Universalism: Connectivity and Diversion of Transnational Nationalisms of Japan and India

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  • <研究ノート>反人種差別と霊的普遍主義 --日印ナショナリズムの交差と分岐--
  • 反人種差別と霊的普遍主義 : 日印ナショナリズムの交差と分岐
  • ハン ジンシュ サベツ ト レイテキ フヘン シュギ : ニチイン ナショナリズム ノ コウサ ト ブンキ

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Abstract

This paper discusses the relationship between spiritual universalism and anti-racism in Japan and India in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the context of global ethico-spiritual movements and how such movements have significantly influenced global movements against racism in the twentieth century. Although the ideational basis of anti-racism is often seen to rest on the equality of human rights associated with the Enlightenment and rationality, I would like to argue that in late nineteenth to early twentieth-century Japan and India, spiritual universalisms were often the means through which recognition of equality was pursued across cultural, national and imperial borders. Since the Enlightenment philosophy, which posits rationality as the essence of humanity, often also provided the basis of Euro-white supremacy, the movements that pursued racial equality sought human essence in something beyond the body and rationality. While spiritual universalism came to form a part of Japanese imperialist ideology from 1930s, it is worth noting that its other lineages supported not only non-violent nationalist movement in India but also the anti-racist, humanist movement that went along with the interwar and postwar internationalism leading to the establishment of UNESCO. It is necessary, therefore, to examine the details of the conditions under which spiritual universalisms play a role in promoting equality of races, or become linked with racist and imperialist ideology.

Journal

  • 人文學報

    人文學報 114 159-170, 2019-12-25

    THE INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH IN HUMANITIES, KYOTO UNIVERSITY

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