the Argumentative Indian

Argumentative Amartya

Early this August, Amartya Sen gave a talk in which he set out the positions he’s taken in his new book, The Argumentative Indian, one of the most profound and wide-ranging inquiries into the idea of India written in recent times.

Indians like to argue, he said, pointing to what he calls the “argumentative tradition”, an acceptance of plurality as the natural state of affairs, a long and robust tradition of heterodoxy, dissent, inquiry and analysis.

I had the good fortune of once interviewing professor Sen, this was before he won the Nobel Prize for Economics (the wide-ranging variety of my career often surprises even me, since I tend to forget past successes in light of present struggles). And I was struck by his modesty and accessibility to a relatively unknown rookie TV reporter. He chose to give me an interview rather than hold court at doddering old IIC. My employer had sneered at my ability at securing interviews with prominent people but thanks to Professor Sen, I was able to prove him wrong.

His latest book continues his tradition of revelation. I'll leave the objections to the argumentative pundits of India's many universities and diaspora. To me, it was an affirmation of what I thought about our great scholarly traditions, his fine logic gave these thoughts structure. His book reminded me of the many reasons I was once proud of Hindu tradition and thought:

- Aryabhatt: the ancient Indian mathematician of 476BC who postulated the Earth was round, calculated the value of Pi (to greater accuracy than Ptolemy), worked out the duration of the day at the poles and the heliocentric theory of Gravitation, among others. His work Aryabhattiya was translated into Latin in the 13th century.
- Gargi: a woman philosopher of ancient India (Vedic period 800BC) whose theories challenged the learned men of her day.
- Kashyapa or Kanada: propounded the Vaisheshika-Sutra (Peculiarity Aphorisms) the atomic theory of matter.

"In India I found a race of mortals
living upon the Earth, but not adhering to it.
Inhabiting cities, but not being fixed to them,
possessing everything but possessed by nothing".

- Apollonius Tyanaeus
(Greek Thinker and Traveller 1st Century AD)

To sum our past achievements up in one word (plurality) - and shroud it in dense terminology that is hard to debate - is the legacy of Academicians who fear the original Argumentative Indian. The Man (or Woman) on the street.

Sen also talks about the parable of the Kupamandaka (a favourite one of my grandfather too, incidentally, Bengali academicians being predictable in ttheir tastes). Kupamandaka (Sanskrit for Frog in the Well) who knows nothing about the outside world and this lack of knowledge is why he perishes.

Hmmmm, perhaps there are some Kupamandakas around here...