A Great Indian Intellectual Balancing Act: Review of The Argumentative Indian (Amartya Sen 2005)

(Prof. Sen's image is superimposed here on the cover of the book)
Click here to read this scholarly expression of everyday life thru' the eyes of a linguist while I post this blog.


A Great Intellectual Balancing Act: Review of
The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture, and Identity by Amartya Sen432pp, Allen Lane, £25

(Draft)

This great book on Indian culture, history and tradition by the greatest living economist philosopher of the world will be enjoyable to the reading public in general and of immense help to the students of Indian culture and philosophy. Contrary to the western as well as the eastern popular characterizations of the ancient Indian tradition as one which is immersed in deep religiosity and 'profound spirituality', Prof. Sen reveals a view of India which has a remarkably consistent intellectual tradition and a relevant history of heterodoxy. By focusing on heterodoxy and loquaciousness Prof. Sen offers a fuller understanding of Indian traditions, which is a product of dynamic interaction of various factors. This general book on India illustrates the relevance of the argumentative, skeptical tradition of ancient India in the flowering of dynamism in Indian society and culture and of scientific, philosophical, mathematical, rational, and secular domains of knowledge.


If I know that you have drawing skills and time to spend on drawing a cartoon picture, then I would have requested you to draw a cartoon of Prof Amartya Sen's work in The Argumentative Indian as a balancing act. Prof Sen skillfully walks on a tightrope of the entwined threads of the past and present of Indian culture, with a long secular balancing bamboo pole in his hand. On the one side of the balancing pole has the vast Indian religious literature, religious and spiritual practices and on the other hand of the pole has the vigorous skeptical thought, science, mathematics and reasoning. And there are many flowers-‘Nagarjuna's penetrating philosophical arguments, Harsa's philanthropic leadership, Maitreyi's and Gargi's searching questions, Aryabhatta's astronomical findings, Kalidasa's dazzling poetry, Sudraka's subversive drama, Abul Fazal's astounding scholarship, Shah Jahan's aesthetic vision, Ramanujan's mathematics, Ravi Shankar's and Ali Akbar Khan's music etc’- attached to the balancing pole. An autumn in full bloom on the secular balance of Indian traditions! The rope on which Prof Sen does the act is tied to the pillars of development of science, mathematics and reasoning on the one end and the politics of tolerance and secularism on the other. A virtuoso performance of a funambulist of India before the reading public!


It is only very rarely that we get a scholarly work of this reach and range about Indian intellectual traditions. The book is not a short one, but one can enjoy till the last past page of this 432 page book, as it is full of anecdotes, discreet and insightful tit-bits from a wide variety of sources including autobiographical notes. So, if you take this on a Mumbai to Calicut train journey, you can finish it by the time you reach back in Mumbai while experiencing though only cursorily, the many facets of the diverse country with its "many distinct pursuits, vastly disparate convictions, widely divergent customs and a veritable feast of viewpoints".
One cannot ignore the multi-culturalism within Indian culture as one gropes out in Indian rural and urbanscapes, to mention, even in a city like Mumbai cultural heterodoxy is quite palpable. The "diversity" in music, costumes, festivals, architecture, and cuisine are striking and revealing the culture of India. For instance, there are cuisines-one of the important signpost of culture- of Gujarati, Malayali, Tamil, Bengali, Punjabi, Mughali, and Kashmiri that satisfy the culinary adventure trips of people of all walks of life, in every city in India along with the new age food joints. Prof. Sen's work does not labour the obvious cultural traits or the popular stories of the 'bloody battles in India's past' or the orthodox characterization of added spirituality and religiosity. It deals with the aspects of questioning and skepticism that were the hallmark of ancient Indian culture but overlooked by many a commentator on Indian culture and philosophy. The Argumentative Indian programmatically focuses on the dialogic tradition of ancient India.


I call this enterprise programmatic because accepting that ancient Indian tradition was predominantly argumentative is just a beginning to see and then to interpret the vast literature of ancient India and to address the contemporary Indian concerns, in this light. Oftentimes much of the intellectual fruits of the ancient Indian thinkers have not been recognized, though they have influenced in important ways the pieces of knowledge we possess today. Prof. Sen's programme is to give the credit where it is due, in intellectual terms, for the Indian both ancient and contemporary alike, that s/he richly deserves, in a general sort of way. On the face of it, in each discipline, each subject, and each podium of Indian culture, this act has to be redone, in a specific sort of way.


Taking the argumentative tradition as a framework, say, for Indian philosophy, is particularly important in the present state of affairs and may yield many interesting results. Placing arguments where many put revelations will have much scope of integrating the vast and vibrant literature of ancient India with the contemporary science and philosophy. Placing heterodoxy, reasoning and choice where many put orthodoxy, destiny and determinism will have similar scope of revealing the basis of Indian democracy, culture and secularism.


A predominant way seeing ancient Indian culture and vast literature is to view it as high peaks of religious beliefs molded in deep spirituality and profound 'faith-based and unreasoning culture' as distinct from the "shallow rationalism" and 'scientific priorities of the West'. In this monolithic characterization of ancient Indian heritage, what are missed are the gems of the argumentative past of India: it's rational and scientific achievements. In the graph of this monolithic characterization, the products of ancients India are shown as having the highest value and the present world as having the least. The graph line glides down from top to bottom. Those who follow this model hold that there is a sharp decline in the intellectual achievement. Prof Sen is not the first person to deny this picture of India, many have argued against the above model. Some have even suggested an opposite model of intellectual growth, from bottom to top. They opine that there's a steady progress in intellectual achievements from ancient Indian to the contemporary India. Sen's writing does not support this model either. On the contrary, he carves out a niche for the argumentative past of India, in between these models, often cross-cutting both. He 'respects' (those who go against the popular reading of ancient Indian culture often face the bad notices that they do not respect it. see p5 fn.) and upholds the creditable achievements of the ancient as well as the contemporary India, so as to make them a significant part of global knowledge and culture. The best of India, with this focus, falls well within the "western spheres of success" of rationality and science. Against the contemporary reinterpretations-both Western critics and Indian cultural separatists- of India that play up the contrast between "Western rationality" and "Indian religious and spiritual DEEP rationality, Prof. Sen argues that these attempts miss 'crucial aspects of Indian culture'. It is however, important to note that in arguing thus Sen underlines 'the dialectical aspects of the relationship between India and the West'. In the sphere of global knowledge and culture India's contribution and tradition, like many other civilisations, has been important. In the contemporary socio-political scenario, it is a great lesson to understand that the cherished rational paradigms of the world are the conglomeration of the contributions of many different cultures.

The central theme of the book
At the outset of this remarkable work, which is divided into four sections, namely Voice and Heterodoxy (Part1), Culture and Communication (Part 2), Politics and Protest (Part 3), and Reason and Identity (Part 4), by one of the greatest philosopher of our time, Prof Sen outlines the main point of this collection of essays. The main theme can be stated in two sentences: India-"an immensely diverse country with many distinct pursuits, vastly disparate convictions, widely divergent customs and a veritable feast of viewpoints"- has a very long and consistent history of argumentative tradition. Focusing on this argumentative tradition in India has contemporary significance as far as the democratic character of the country is concerned. That is, on the positive side the recognition of the long argumentative tradition in India strengthens the democratic fabric and the public reasoning, on the negative side, it reminds us of the relative neglect of this tradition in ongoing cultural discussions.

A few problems and Issues at large
>>>(to be continued)