Dialogue: Temporarily Out of Service
By- Dr Srabani Basu
Associate Professor, Department of Literature and Languages , SRM University AP,
There was a time when civilisation believed that the shortest distance between two minds was not a memo but a conversation.
Today, we appear to have discovered a revolutionary alternative.
Why engage in dialogue when one can simply issue a declaration? It is considerably faster, wonderfully economical and, most importantly, eliminates the unpredictable possibility that someone else may have a good idea.
Progress, after all, demands efficiency.
The ancient Greeks would have found this fascinating. Socrates wandered through the streets of Athens asking inconvenient questions, not because he enjoyed irritating people, though history suggests he was rather good at it, but because he believed that truth emerged through dialogue. His method was beautifully inefficient. He asked. He listened. He questioned again. Every answer was merely an invitation to another question. If he were alive today, he might be advised to submit his questions in writing, in duplicate, through the proper channel, and await further instructions.
The Indian philosophical tradition understood this with equal clarity. Consider perhaps its most celebrated dialogue. The armies stood poised on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. Conch shells had been blown. Warriors awaited the signal to advance. If there was ever a moment to declare, “There is no time for discussion,” this was surely it. Yet the Mahabharata does something extraordinary. It pauses the war. Arjuna questions, doubts, hesitates and even refuses to fight. Krishna, despite being the charioteer of history itself, does not silence him with authority. He does not say, “Do as you are told.” He explains, questions, persuades, challenges and responds. The Bhagavad Gita is not a commandment delivered from a pedestal; it is a dialogue conducted on the edge of catastrophe. Civilisation’s most enduring lessons, it seems, emerged not because someone spoke louder, but because someone chose to listen before asking another question.
The Upanishads are not manuals; they are conversations. Nachiketa questioned Yama, the god of death, with a courage that many boardrooms would consider deeply inappropriate. The Bhagavad Gita unfolds because Arjuna refuses to suppress his doubts and Krishna does not mistake questions for disobedience. Across centuries, Buddhist scholars, Mimamsakas, Naiyayikas, Vedantics and Jains refined the art of śāstrārtha, the disciplined exchange of ideas. Victory was desirable, but understanding was indispensable. One did not merely speak; one had to respond.
Somewhere along the journey from the agora of Athens and the forests of ancient India to our impeccably organised institutions, dialogue appears to have misplaced its invitation card.
Communication flourishes, of course. Emails multiply. Notifications bloom with remarkable fertility. Circulars descend with the certainty of divine revelation. Meetings are held with impressive punctuality. Presentations sparkle. Minutes are recorded with forensic precision. Information travels at the speed of light.
Understanding, unfortunately, often travels by bullock cart.
We seem to have confused communication with transmission. They are not the same. A loudspeaker communicates magnificently. It has never, to the best of our knowledge, understood anyone.
Dialogue possesses an inconvenient habit. It assumes that no single individual has a monopoly over wisdom. This is a deeply unsettling proposition because it implies that listening is not an act of courtesy but an act of intelligence.
Monologues, on the other hand, are wonderfully reassuring. They travel in one direction. They encounter no resistance. They preserve certainty. They never suffer the indignity of being altered by evidence or enriched by another perspective.
Imagine applying this philosophy elsewhere. A physician announces a diagnosis before hearing the patient. A judge pronounces the verdict before hearing the witnesses. A teacher grades the examination before reading the answers. A marriage counsellor begins with, “I have already decided who is right.” We would call this absurd.
Yet somehow, outside these examples, we occasionally celebrate certainty more enthusiastically than curiosity.
Perhaps the greatest casualty of the disappearing dialogue is not democracy, governance or management. It is learning itself. Every meaningful discovery in human history began with someone willing to say, “I may not have the whole picture.” Dialogue begins where certainty becomes humble enough to invite another chair to the table.
The irony is irresistible. We inhabit the most connected civilisation in history. Billions of messages travel across continents in seconds. Satellites ensure that no corner of the planet remains unreachable. Artificial intelligence can converse with millions simultaneously.
And yet, one of humanity’s oldest technologies; the simple willingness to ask, “What do you think?”is becoming increasingly rare.
Perhaps dialogue has not disappeared at all.It has simply become an endangered administrative procedure.
Before engaging in one, kindly complete Form D-101 (Application for Genuine Conversation), obtain signatures from all stakeholders, attach two passport-sized photographs, submit three copies of your opinion, and wait for approval from the Committee for the Prevention of Unscheduled Thinking.
Your application will be reviewed in due course.Please do not contact the committee.They are not open to dialogue.
