Truth has been a contested concept between men of religion, philosophers and ideologues, generating conflicting social-economic-political paradigms. The Towering Wave, a literary work by philosopher B.K Mallik first published in 1953, explores these clashing alternatives while seeking answers to problems of conflict and existential uncertainty. Mallik lived through two world wars in Oxford which had raised uncomfortable questions about the assumptions underlying European self-understanding and led to new attempts to configure a post-colonial international order. These form the background to the questions raised in this book.
Mallik offers a novel interpretation of conflict deriving from basic principles for dealing with fundamental differences. He suggests a qualitatively new technique that can bypass historical impasses and usher in a stable peace.
This book written almost immediately after Gandhis demise suggests a fresh view of his struggle to achieve peace in the human home embedded as it is in Malliks socio-philosophical theory of conflict and its avoidance. Further in the light of the authors view of the dynamics of history, it reads the life and death of Mahatma Gandhi as more than a mere episode in the milieu of traditional value: it is projected as a significant event which opens up new and unprecedented possibilities for the future of man.
As an original and thought-provoking perspective it should invoke the interest of Gandhians, philosophers and historians alike.
