The Argumentative Indian
The Argumentative Indian is the latest book of Nobel Prize winner Prof. Amartya Sen. Urged by my curiosity about India and the nature of Indians who like to argue and talk about anything, I bought the book and read it with great admiration. The book gave a very illuminating depiction of India and the Indian tradition that long have been a part of the amazing civilization. So the following is a review of this interesting book by John Walsh*.
In the 3rd century BC, the Emperor Ashoka ordered the third and most prestigious of the Councils to be held to resolve various religious differences between contending factions. History does not record all that was said at the Council but it is easy to believe it was a lengthy occasion since, as AMARTYA SEN begins this splendid collection of essays, "Prolixity is not alien to us in India". But is it prolixity to any particular end? Sen's desire is to relocate India and Indian civilisation as centres in which, as for Ashoka's council, rational and calm attempts to resolve contentious issues take place. In doing so, he also seeks to show India as more than just the home for effete mysticism that it has been portrayed to be in some western societies.
Calm and rational are suitable words to describe Sen, of course, because his reputation as a Nobel Prize-winning economist was based largely on his efforts to reconcile economic analysis and its assumptions of rational human behaviour with the real ways in which people behave. Economic thought provides useful analytical tools but only when these are harnessed to a humanistic philosophy are they useful. Sen deploys these tools in a variety of fields, demonstrating a wide range of learning and of concerns. His arguments are persuasive, infused with concern for people of all stations and filled with the calmness that derives from a masterful employment of discourse.
The book is divided into four sections, each of four essays which were themselves written over the course of the past decade. Perhaps the best of these is the second section, entitled "Culture and Communication", which is instrumental in defining the overarching themes of the book. In "Tagore and His India", Sen re-establishes the work and reputation of Rabindranath Tagore as a polymath with concerns political and practical. In doing so, he reinstates Tagore to his rightful position. As Sen points out, Tagore's reputation has suffered in the west and his talents often ignored. Indeed, he shows Tagore to have established a reputation for intellectual breadth and depth that made him the equal in importance of Mahatma Gandhi, who has now become iconic in helping to bring about Indian independence. Gandhi is, again outside India, often considered to be saintlike in his dedication to peace and justice and these virtues became faults when translated into a political context.
If Tagore shows India in the modern world to be at least in part an upholder of a practical, secularist and rational mode of thinking, then the essay "China and India" demonstrates the roots of this tradition in the distant past. The stories of the pilgrimages of Chinese monks to India to secure Buddhist texts are well-known; less well-known are the travels and lengthy sojourns in China of Indian sages and their impact. The religious exchanges between the two countries are described and then set in a larger and more modern context. Religion was not the only subject in which exchanges took place. Practical issues such as food preparation and health care were also improved by cross-civilisation discourse. When Mao and the Communists ascended to power, universal healthcare improved many vital indicators of public health in China and vaulted that country above India. However, with the opening of the Chinese economy, inequalities in society have hugely increased while public health indicators show declines, so that India has again taken the lead. There are complex lessons to be drawn from the totality of this analysis.
In the section entitled "Politics and Protest", Sen again employs his technique with forensic precision to skewer the illogicalities and inequities inherent in the discrimination against women, low castes and the poor endemic in Indian society. He shows how these factors are deeply interrelated not only with each other but also with factors such as religion and ethnicity. He argues that it is not sensible or even possible to try to challenge one of these factors without simultaneously monitoring and affecting the change on the others. The same discursive techniques show how ill-served India has been by its resumption of the nuclear bomb testing program and the foolishness of religious extremism.
AMARTYA SEN is one of the leading intellectuals not just in Asia but throughout the world. His commitment to raising awareness of the ways in which poverty can be ended is well-known. In this collection of essays, he cements his reputation as a clear-thinking visionary for the future through his thorough understanding of both the past and the present.
*John Walsh is Assistant Professor at Shinawatra International University, Bangkok.
In the 3rd century BC, the Emperor Ashoka ordered the third and most prestigious of the Councils to be held to resolve various religious differences between contending factions. History does not record all that was said at the Council but it is easy to believe it was a lengthy occasion since, as AMARTYA SEN begins this splendid collection of essays, "Prolixity is not alien to us in India". But is it prolixity to any particular end? Sen's desire is to relocate India and Indian civilisation as centres in which, as for Ashoka's council, rational and calm attempts to resolve contentious issues take place. In doing so, he also seeks to show India as more than just the home for effete mysticism that it has been portrayed to be in some western societies.
Calm and rational are suitable words to describe Sen, of course, because his reputation as a Nobel Prize-winning economist was based largely on his efforts to reconcile economic analysis and its assumptions of rational human behaviour with the real ways in which people behave. Economic thought provides useful analytical tools but only when these are harnessed to a humanistic philosophy are they useful. Sen deploys these tools in a variety of fields, demonstrating a wide range of learning and of concerns. His arguments are persuasive, infused with concern for people of all stations and filled with the calmness that derives from a masterful employment of discourse.
The book is divided into four sections, each of four essays which were themselves written over the course of the past decade. Perhaps the best of these is the second section, entitled "Culture and Communication", which is instrumental in defining the overarching themes of the book. In "Tagore and His India", Sen re-establishes the work and reputation of Rabindranath Tagore as a polymath with concerns political and practical. In doing so, he reinstates Tagore to his rightful position. As Sen points out, Tagore's reputation has suffered in the west and his talents often ignored. Indeed, he shows Tagore to have established a reputation for intellectual breadth and depth that made him the equal in importance of Mahatma Gandhi, who has now become iconic in helping to bring about Indian independence. Gandhi is, again outside India, often considered to be saintlike in his dedication to peace and justice and these virtues became faults when translated into a political context.
If Tagore shows India in the modern world to be at least in part an upholder of a practical, secularist and rational mode of thinking, then the essay "China and India" demonstrates the roots of this tradition in the distant past. The stories of the pilgrimages of Chinese monks to India to secure Buddhist texts are well-known; less well-known are the travels and lengthy sojourns in China of Indian sages and their impact. The religious exchanges between the two countries are described and then set in a larger and more modern context. Religion was not the only subject in which exchanges took place. Practical issues such as food preparation and health care were also improved by cross-civilisation discourse. When Mao and the Communists ascended to power, universal healthcare improved many vital indicators of public health in China and vaulted that country above India. However, with the opening of the Chinese economy, inequalities in society have hugely increased while public health indicators show declines, so that India has again taken the lead. There are complex lessons to be drawn from the totality of this analysis.
In the section entitled "Politics and Protest", Sen again employs his technique with forensic precision to skewer the illogicalities and inequities inherent in the discrimination against women, low castes and the poor endemic in Indian society. He shows how these factors are deeply interrelated not only with each other but also with factors such as religion and ethnicity. He argues that it is not sensible or even possible to try to challenge one of these factors without simultaneously monitoring and affecting the change on the others. The same discursive techniques show how ill-served India has been by its resumption of the nuclear bomb testing program and the foolishness of religious extremism.
AMARTYA SEN is one of the leading intellectuals not just in Asia but throughout the world. His commitment to raising awareness of the ways in which poverty can be ended is well-known. In this collection of essays, he cements his reputation as a clear-thinking visionary for the future through his thorough understanding of both the past and the present.
*John Walsh is Assistant Professor at Shinawatra International University, Bangkok.
posted by Mas Qisa'i at 10:00 PM
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