BOOK
REVIEW Indian culture, heterodoxy under
scrutiny The
Argumentative Indian by Amartya
Sen
Reviewed by Kedar Deshpande
Nearly 60 years
after Indian independence, economist Amartya Sen
offers a treatise on modern Indian society, as
well as an alternative look at ancient India. His
immediate interests are "history, culture and
identity", although he cannot help but interweave
commentary and analysis of present-day Indian
politics and failures, while highlighting the
country's enormous potential.
The
Argumentative Indian can be considered an
heir to and reassessment of India's history and
identity, the latter envisioned
and
explored by Jawaharlal Nehru in his 1943 epic,
The Discovery of India. Nehru wrote his
book while serving a lengthy prison sentence; in
contrast, Sen's book comes at the height of his
fame and international popularity as a Nobel
laureate and acclaimed academic. This in itself
marks the sharp differences and changes in India's
image in the world.
This new publication
from Sen, however, takes a more scholarly approach
than Nehru's impassioned and monumental tome.
Sixty years on, Sen is both a champion and
critical observer of India and its diverse
cultures.
Heterodoxy and
extremism The book's 16 chapters, most of
which are extended and modified reprints of
previous lectures and essays from 1993 to 2001,
are each devoted to their own specific, and often
overlapping, interests. To make these topics more
manageable, Sen chooses to focus on the
"argumentative" and heterodox tradition of Indian
thought and philosophy, though some of the later
essays bypass this primary focus.
For Sen,
the widespread legacy of heterodoxy in Indian
traditions is critical for understanding the
country's past. "Indian traditions in mathematics,
logic, science, medicine, linguistics or
epistemology may be well known to the Western
specialist, but they play little part in the
general Western understanding of India. Mysticism
and exoticism, in contrast, have a more hallowed
position in that understanding." (p 155)
This persistent tendency to emphasize only
the "exotic" negates the rational, scientific and
non-religious (often openly agnostic or atheistic)
schools of thought that pervade ancient Indian
scholarship and philosophy.
Sen's
frustration, however, is not limited to Western
academics. He also condemns Hindu fundamentalists
who aim to rewrite India's past and modify its
present to reflect only Hindu beliefs and
traditions. "[The Bengali poet] Rabindranath
Tagore thought that the 'idea of India' militates
'against the intense consciousness of the
separateness of one's own people from others'.
Through its attempt to encourage and exploit
separatism, the Hindutva movement has entered into
a confrontation with the idea of India itself.
This is nothing short of a sustained effort to
miniaturize the broad idea of a large India -
proud of its heterodox past and its pluralist
present - and to replace it by the stamp of a
small India, bundled around a drastically
downsized version of Hinduism." (p 72)
To
make his case, Sen refers to the Babri Masjid
controversy. In 1992 the Babri mosque was torn
down by irate Hindus who insisted that the mythic
hero Rama, from the epic Ramayana , was
born on the site of the mosque. Another alleged
claim is that a Hindu temple stood there
previously, but was torn down by Muslims. Sen's
condemnation of the violence in 1992 is both
simple and precise: firstly, the Ramayana is not a
legal document that gives license for destruction.
To say Rama was born on that spot "nine-lakh
[900,000] years ago" elicits skepticism, as it
predates recorded history.
Secondly, to
tear down a mosque on the basis that a supposed
temple previously stood there at some point in the
past, is simply inexcusable. "Why any of these
theories - historical or religious - even if they
were accepted, would give license for religious
vandalism or sectarian destruction, is not at all
clear ... Many Hindu schools of thought do not
mention Rama at all, and among the texts that do,
many hardly portray him in the spectacular light
of divinity in which the present-day Hindutva
activists insist on seeing him." (p 48)
All of this leads to a "remarkably
constricted" and reduced view of Hinduism. It is
also dangerous, divisive and contrary to the
intrinsic spirit of debate and dissent in Hindu,
as well as Indian, tradition. Sen is careful and
determined to avoid falling into the trap of
making "Hindu" and "India" synonymous with one
another. He achieves this by continually referring
to the other religions and beliefs in the country,
while reminding us that India was predominantly
Buddhist for nearly 1,000 years.
By
highlighting contemporary Indian issues (such as
the Hindutva movement), Sen manages to appeal to
non-academic readers. At the same time, the
analyses of modern day occurrences seem to make
the essays feel dated, as some of these issues,
however recent, have passed outside of the Indian
psyche.
Politics, culture and
logic At least a few essays in the
collection are classic Sen. The essay "Class in
India" stands out for its in-depth look at the
connections and assumptions underlying social
inequality in India with regards to income,
literacy and gender. Its passage about hunger,
chronic malnutrition and stockpiled grain supplies
is not only clear and logical, but revelatory.
This was the type of essay that made the Indian
government implement some innovative policies,
such as the introduction of the midday meal at
public schools (thereby increasing attendance and
also unloading food supplies to those who most
need it, such as poor children).
The
charged essay "India the Bomb" presents a logical,
precise and humane refutation of nuclear weapons,
especially pertinent in today's anti-pacifist
political climate. By dissecting the arguments and
opinions subcontinentals use in favor of nuclear
weapons, Sen reveals the folly in their thinking.
Referring to the heated debates following India's
nuclear detonations in 1998, Sen states simply:
"Since the effectiveness of these weapons depends
ultimately on the willingness to use them in some
situations, there is an issue of coherence of
thought that has to be addressed here ... To hold
the belief that nuclear weapons are useful but
must never be used lacks cogency." (p 257) This
simple critique might make people reassess, if not
necessarily change, their beliefs.
His
follow-up, executed with impeccable logic,
deconstructs the common premise that says: if
other countries can have nuclear weapons, why
can't we? As Sen stoically explains, "These
statements, even if entirely justified and
extremely momentous, do not establish the sagacity
of a nuclear policy that dramatically increases
uncertainties within the subcontinent without
achieving anything to make each country more
secure." And then, with a typical Sen quip, he
decides, "Indeed, Bangladesh is probably now the
safest country to live in, in the subcontinent."
(p 258)
Sen's use of humor is both
well-timed and necessary for a topic of this sort,
which invariably elicits anger and frustration. In
another hilarious passage, Sen writes: "I remember
thinking in the middle of May 1998, following the
Indian tests, that surely Pakistan would now blast
a larger number of bombs than India's five. I was
agreeably impressed by Pakistan's moderation in
blasting only six, which is the smallest whole
number larger than five." (p 267)
Ultimately, while he acknowledges the
hypocrisy of nuclear states in clamoring for
non-proliferation, he is quick to admonish this
line of thinking. "Moral resentment cannot justify
a prudential blunder" and nuclear holocaust.
The endearing and influential
academic A pure Bengali in mind and spirit,
Sen cannot help but invoke his heritage. He
continues a long tradition of Bengali creative
intellectualism. He is also the other member of
the Bengali-culture triumvirate, which includes
the poet Rabindranath Tagore and the filmmaker
Satyajit Ray. He pays homage to Tagore in an
illuminating biographical essay, surveying his
life and work, as well as his differences with
Gandhi, who gained the title "Mahatma" from the
poet-writer. He also quotes and acknowledges the
legendary Ray in a vital, brilliant essay about
"East-West" cultural differences and
globalization. In Ray, Sen recognizes "much wisdom
in what we can call his 'critical openness',
including the valuing of a dynamic, adaptable
world, rather than one that is constantly
'policing' external influences and fearing
'invasion' of ideas from elsewhere". (p 124)
Sen lives up to his image as a humane and
lucid academic and commentator. He repeatedly
emphasizes the need for vocal, democratic
political participation from all sections of
Indian society. "The future of stratifications
related to class, caste, gender and other barriers
will depend critically on how they are addressed
in political engagement and participatory social
actions in the country. Despite the frustration
with democracy expressed by many people ... what
is really needed is a more vigorous practice of
democracy, rather than the absence of it." (p 36)
His insistence upon basic education for
the poor is vehement and logical, but also serves
as a damning condemnation of modern Indian
society. While Sen praises the growth of higher
education in India, he does not ignore the lack of
even basic education for vast swaths of India's
population. He believes this lack "adds to the
massive waste of talent that is a characteristic
of the life of our country. If we have not yet
been able to seize the economic opportunities for
manufacture of simple products in a way that has
happened in Japan, Korea, China and other
countries in East Asia, not to mention the West,
India's remarkable neglect of basic education has
a decisive role in this handicap." (p 344)
By the end of the book, Sen emerges as a
champion of Indian culture and an intensely humane
and clear-sighted writer and thinker. His
rejection of cultural relativity and
cherry-picking Western academics and chauvinistic
Indian nationalists, at once helps to reveal a
new, though ancient, India. It allows us to see a
country and culture hidden by hyperbolic
representations of religiosity, poverty and
insanity. Sen normalizes India and renders it all
the more fascinating and diverse as a result.
Conclusion Yet, even with this
specific focus, the book suffers from brevity. One
gets the notion that Sen was trying to be
sufficiently brief and varied for general readers,
but scholarly enough for academics. The result is
a mildly disappointing collection, with only a few
superb essays. While hardly indispensable, The
Argumentative Indian could serve as a good
introduction for readers unfamiliar with Sen, the
more inquisitive of whom will undoubtedly seek out
his other works, particularly the ones he cites
and refers to in his footnotes.
Indeed,
one wonders why he didn't include in this
collection some of the footnote essays, rather
than making brief, unsatisfactory statements
concerning heady, enormous issues. For example,
the essay "Women and Men" comes across as a vast
overview of gender inequities in India. He would
have done better to simply reprint his article
"Missing Women" (to which he refers the reader),
which features a statistical analysis of the
number of women "missing" in India after decades
of female infanticide, high mortality rates and
other gender-related injustices. Perhaps Sen felt
constrained by his primary thesis, though many of
the book's essays are only tangentially linked to
the tradition of heterodoxy in India, as
exemplified by an out-of-place, though
interesting, piece about the variety of Indian
calendrical systems.
Also, some casual
comments deserve full essays in themselves, such
as this stunning remark, "There is ... nothing
false about Indian poverty, nor about the fact -
remarkable to others - that Indians have learned
to live normal lives while taking little notice of
[their] surrounding misery." (p 127)
While
Sen mentions Indian innovations and discoveries in
various fields including mathematics and
astronomy, his brief quotations from ancient
Arabic and Chinese historians to this effect seem
inadequate. On the other hand, few direct pieces
of evidence remain from India itself to attest to
these discoveries. However, when Sen outlines the
depth and diversity of the Indian philosophic
tradition, he would do well to go further and
quote those sources directly. Unfortunately, one
must take his word that philosophers such as
Aryabata, Nagarjuna and Kauitilya are "a match for
Aristotle".
Sen might very well be
correct, but he provides few specific examples of
the beliefs of those, and other, ancient Indian
philosophers. It's a shame, too, as few people are
capable of introducing and rendering accessible
the works of those ancient scholars the way Sen is
able to. Based upon his ability to reference and
analyze complex works such as the Ramayana
and Mahabarata, the well-read Sen shows
himself to be as adept a literary critic and
philosopher as he is an economist or social
commentator.
With any number of books
being released about India, typically about the
economy or geopolitics, The Argumentative
Indian is welcome for its different focus and
emphasis on culture and logic. At the same time,
the collection can feel superficial at times and
unsatisfying due to its brevity. Sen should be
applauded for focusing his prodigious intellect
and scholarship on neglected aspects of Indian
society, but the reader is left wishing he went a
bit further, with slightly longer essays (or
different essays all together) and more
evidence-based analysis.
Regardless, Sen
does manage to convey the complexity, diversity
and heterodoxy of Indian thought throughout the
country's history. One can only hope that Sen
returns to these topics with a larger volume in
the future.
The Argumentative
Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and
Identity by Amartya Sen. Allen Lane/Penguin,
2005. ISBN: 0713996870. Price: US$26 (hardback),
356 pages.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times
Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us
for information on sales, syndication and republishing
.)
Nearly 60 years
after Indian independence, economist Amartya Sen
offers a treatise on modern Indian society, as
well as an alternative look at ancient India. His
immediate interests are "history, culture and
identity", although he cannot help but interweave
commentary and analysis of present-day Indian
politics and failures, while highlighting the
country's enormous potential. 
