The Argumentative Indian

by Amartya Sen

  41. On this, see my Inaugural Address to the Indian History Congress in January 2001: ‘History and the Enterprise of Knowledge’, distributed by the Congress; repr. in New Humanist, 116 (2 June 2001).

  42. On this, see particularly Matilal, Perception.

  43. Trans. Makhanlal Sen, Ramayana: From the Original Valmiki (Calcutta: Rupa, 1989), pp. 174–5.

  44. Sarva-Darsana-Samgraha, trans. Cowell and Gough, p. 6.

  45. Ibid.

  46. Ibid. On the epistemological issues pursued here and in related texts, see also Matilal, Perception.

  47. See Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya, Lokayata, pp. 2–3; and Ramendranath Ghosh, in his Bengali essay on ‘Cārvāka Materialism’ in Dipak Bhattacharya, Moinul Hassan and Kumkum Ray (eds.), India and Indology: Professor Sukumari Bhattacharji Felicitation Volume (Kolkata [Calcutta]: National Book Agency, 2004), p. 242.

  48. Repr. in B. H. G. Wormald, Francis Bacon: History, Politics and Science, 1561–1626 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 356–7.

  49. Alberuni’s India, trans. E. C. Sachau, ed. A. T. Embree (New York: Norton, 1971), p.111. Further discussion of this controversy can be found in my essay ‘History and the Enterprise of Knowledge’.

  50. Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1994), p. 21.

  51. In the presence of multiple and interdependent causation, which factor we decide to emphasize must depend on what features are being highlighted already. Facing a different act of balancing in the context of British history, Eric Hobsbawm discussed, half a century ago, why it was important for Marxist historians (he was writing as one) to bring out the role of ‘ideals, passions and movements’ (increasingly neglected by orthodox historians), rather than concentrating mainly on material conditions – the traditional focus of Marxist analysis: ‘In the pre-Namier days Marxists regarded it as one of their chief historical duties to draw attention to the material bases of politics…. But since bourgeois historians have adopted what is a particular form of vulgar materialism, Marxists have had to remind them that history is the struggle of men for ideas, as well as a reflection of their material environment’ (‘Where Are British Historians Going?’, Marxist Quarterly, 2 Jan. 1955, p. 22).

  52. Rabindranath Tagore, The Religion of Man (London: Unwin, 1931, 2nd edn., 1961), p. 105.

  53. From Gitanjali. See also Essay 5.

  ESSAY 2. INEQUALITY, INSTABILITY AND VOICE

  1. See Louis Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and Its Implications (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980). For critical assessment of Dumont’s reading of Indian stratification and related theses, see André Béteille, The Idea of Natural Inequality and Other Essays (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983); Arjun Appadurai, ‘Is Homo Hierarchicus?’, American Anthropologist, 13 (1986); Dipankar Gupta (ed.), Social Stratification (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1991); Nicholas Dirks, ‘Castes of Mind’, Representations, 37 (1992), and Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India (Princeton: Princeton University Press,2001 ).

  2. See e.g. Charles Taylor, Philosophy and the Human Sciences: Philosophical Papers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); and Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth, Redistribution or Recognition? A Political-Philosophical Exchange (London: Verso Books, 2003). The underlying issues in the idea of recognition are also discussed by Emma Rothschild, ‘Dignity or Meanness’, Adam Smith Review, 1 (2004).

  3. Ambedkar himself played an important part in the policy of affirmative actions in favour of disadvantaged social groups (the ‘scheduled castes’ and ‘scheduled tribes’) included in the constitution of the Indian Republic. But his own sense of growing social pessimism led him, eventually, to embrace the egalitarianism of Buddhism, in a powerfully evocative public ceremony of religious conversion. See The Essential Writings of B. R. Ambedkar, ed. Valerian Rodrigues (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002).

  4. The connections are discussed in Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen, Hunger and Public Action (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), and India: Development and Participation (Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). Activist movements for women’s rights and equity, in different forms varying from self-help organizations to participation in public discussion through meetings and publications (Manushi, ed. Madhu Kishwar, a pioneering feminist journal), have had considerable success in changing the agenda of political and social change in India. An engaging account of some of the developments can be found in Radha Kumar’s elegant book, The History of Doing: An Illustrated Account of Movements for Women’s Rights and Feminism in India (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 2nd edn., 1997). The variety of issues in which the women’s movement have to be engaged include the relatively neglected field of ownership in general and land ownership in particular, on which see the classic study of Bina Agarwal, A Field of One’s Own (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). The social correlates of the new departures of the ‘invisible women’ are beautifully described by Anees Jung, Beyond the Courtyard: A Sequel of Unveiling India (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2003).

  5. There are also important issues of governance, in particular what Mark Tully and Gillian Wright call the ‘peculiarly Indian form of bad governance’ (India in Slow Motion, London: Penguin Books, 2003, p. xv). However, the prospects of improving governance in India are linked, ultimately, with the vigour of its democratic practice, as Tully and Wright themselves note. On that connection, see also Drèze and Sen, India: Development and Participation, ch.10.

  6. For references to these and related points of view, see Essay 1, and also Kshiti Mohan Sen, Hinduism (1961, 2005).

  7. Yi Jing, A Record of the Buddhist Religions as Practised in India and Malay Archipelago, trans. J. Takakusu (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1896), p. 136.

  8. Indeed, even the pre-imperial travellers from Britain also tended to see India as a country. This clearly applies, for example, to that determined English tourist, Ralph Fitch, who roamed around India in the sixteenth century. See William Foster (ed.), Early Travels in India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1921).

  9. E. M. Forster, ‘Nine Gems of Ujjain’, in Abinger Harvest (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1936, 1974), pp. 324–7.

  10. Trans. from Barbara Stoler Miller, The Plays ofKalidasa (Delhi: Motilal Banarasidass, 1999), pp. 5–6.

  11. The history of the partition has been the subject of considerable critical analysis. See particularly Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). See also Gyanendra Pandey’s analysis of the causation, intensity and lasting effects of the violence in the process of partition, Remembering Partition: Violence, Nationalism and History in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

  12. The role of civil society for the development of a South Asian community is illuminatingly discussed by Rehman Sobhan, Rediscovering a South Asian Community: Civil Society in Search of Its Future (Colombo: International Centre for Ethnic Studies, 1997).

  ESSAY 3. INDIA: LARGE AND SMALL

  1. Kshiti Mohan Sen, Hinduism (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1961), pp. 39–40.

  2. The translation is from Makhanlal Sen, Ramayana: From the Original Valmiki (Calcutta: Rupa, 1989), p. 174, with minor emendations based on the original Sanskrit text.

  3. On the nature and use of these claims, see Sunil Khilnani, The Idea of India (London: Penguin Books, extended edn., 2003), pp. 150–52.

  4. The contrast between that broad tradition and the narrowness of contemporary political Hinduism is brought out in several of the essays in Tapan Raychaudhuri’s wide-ranging anthology of essays on colonial and post-colonial India, Perceptions, Emotions, Sensibilities: Essays on India’s Colonial and Post-Colonial Experiences (New Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).

  5. In addition to the consolidating role that Indian nationalism played during the struggle for independence, it did also have other – including some less agreeable – social features. See, among other con
tributions, Bipan Chandra, Amales Tripathi and Barun De, Freedom Struggle (New Delhi: National Book Trust, 1972); Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); and Barun De, Nationalism as a Binding Force: The Dialectics of the Historical Course of Nationalism (Calcutta: Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, 1987).

  6. The discussion here draws on an earlier essay, ‘What Is the Indian Nation?’, Taj Magazine (2003).

  7. The book was originally published under the nom de plume ‘A Maratha’ (Hindutva, Nagpur: V. V. Kelkar, 1923). It was later republished under Savarkar’s own name in various editions, including Hindutva (Bombay: Veer Savarkar Prakashan, 6th edn., 1989).

  8. Indeed, Savarkar himself had gone on trial – and been released on somewhat technical grounds – for alleged complicity in Gandhi’s murder. This history is discussed in some detail by A. G. Noorani, Savarkar and Hindutva (Delhi: Leftword Books, 2002). It is a sign of how the times have changed that a portrait of Veer Savarkar was installed in 2004 in the central hall of the Indian parliament, on the initiative of the coalition government (led by the BJP) then in office in New Delhi, even though many parliamentarians boycotted the event.

  9. On different aspects of sectarian conflicts and challenges to secularism in India, see Veena Das (ed.), Mirrors of Violence (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990), including, among other essays, Ashis Nandy, ‘The Politics of Secularism and the Recovery of Religious Tolerance’; K. M. Panikkar (ed.), Communalism in India: History, Politics and Culture (New Delhi: Manohar, 1991); Upendra Baxi and Bhikhu Parekh (eds.), Crisis and Change in Contemporary India (New Delhi: Sage, 1995); Rafiq Zakaria, Widening Divide: An Insight into Hindu-Muslim Relations (London: Viking, 1995); Kaushik Basu and Sanjay Subrahmanyam (eds.), Unravelling the Nation: Sectarian Conflict and India’s Secular Identity (Delhi: Penguin, 1996); Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal (eds.), Nationalism, Democracy and Development: State and Politics in India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997); Achin Vanaik, The Furies of Indian Communalism (London: Verso, 1997); Rajeev Bhargava, Secularism and Its Critics (1998); Neera Chandoke, Beyond Secularism: The Rights of Religious Minorities (Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); A. G. Noorani, The RSS and the BJP (Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 2001); Ashutosh Varshney, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), among other contributions.

  10. The failure of the ruling Congress government to prevent, and even to probe adequately, the riots following Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984, in which a great many Sikhs lost their lives, has also seriously tarnished Congress’s political record.

  11. Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996).

  12. Alberuni’s India, trans. E. C. Sachau, ed. A. T. Embree (New York: Norton, 1971), p. 22.

  13. Rabindranath Tagore, ‘The Message of Indian History’, Visva-Bharati Quarterly, 22 (1902), p. 105. Sunil Khilnani discusses the nature of this diagnosis in his insightful book The Idea of India (London: Penguin Books, extended edn. 2003), pp. 166–70.

  14. Dinesh Chandra Sen, History of Bengali Language and Literature (Delhi: Gian Publishing House, 1986), pp. 10–12.

  15. The sense of astonishment and disapproval about BJP’s use of its official position to radically rewrite Indian history on its own lines, often in direct conflict with well-known features of India’s past, also had a political impact against the BJP, in alienating many Indian intellectuals, who were previously sitting on the fence. There is a lesson here also for the other political parties not to deploy temporal political strength in messing with the history that children have to read. See also Ramachandra Guha’s argument that the left had also earlier used their own official position to give a particular direction to the study of Indian history (‘The Absent Liberal: An Essay on Politics and Intellectual Life’, Economic and Political Weekly, 15 Dec. 2001). Even though that diagnosis of events has been contested, Guha’s demand for efforts to pursue objectivity and to avoid partisan bias in producing textbooks and other official accounts of history is surely important.

  16. One of the first acts of the reconstituted Indian Council of Historical Research was to put into cold storage a history of India’s struggle for independence (called ‘Towards Freedom’) that had been commissioned earlier on – before its reorganization – by the ICHR itself. The decision was apparently connected with the expectation – probably correct enough – that the authors of the study, two distinguished historians (K. M. Panikkar and Sumit Sarkar), were likely to go into the divisive role of Hindu political activists during India’s struggle for national independence.

  17. Hindusthan Times, 5 Oct. 2002.

  18. ‘Inventing History’, Hindu, 14 Oct. 2002.

  19. Chitra Srinivas, a history teacher in a school in New Delhi, who was asked to comment on the textbooks but whose advice (like those of many other history teachers) was comprehensively neglected, commented later that the aim of the textbooks seemed to be the generating of the feeling ‘that our freedom struggle was basically a religious struggle against Christian missionaries and Muslim communalists’. Srinivas, who comes from a Hindu background herself, lamented: ‘The problem is I love India and admire its multicultural society too much…. I am unable to accept distortions in the writing of India’s history that will go against the very spirit of her existence’ (‘Whither Teaching of History?’, in Saffronised and Substandard, New Delhi: SAHMAT, 2002, pp. 69–71).

  20. See Mortimer Wheeler, Indus Civilization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953); John Mitchener, Studies in the Indus Valley Inscriptions (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1978); B. B. Lal and S. P. Gupta (eds.), Frontiers of the Indus Civilization (New Delhi: Books & Books and Indian Archaeological Society, 1984); Bridget and Raymond Allchin, Origins of a Civilization: The Prehistory and Early Archaeology of South Asia (New Delhi: Viking, 1997); D. N. Jha, Ancient India: In Historical Outline (New Delhi: Manohar, 1998).

  21. Aside from these specific misattributions of scientific history, there is a general methodological problem, which Meera Nanda has discussed in her highly engaging book, Prophets Facing Backward: Postmodern Critiques and Hindu Nationalism in India (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003). Nanda argues that at the heart of the Hindutva ideology lies ‘a post-modernist assumption: that each society has its own norms of reasonableness, logic, rules of evidence, and conception of truth’. She presents a forceful critique both of that assumption and of the use she argues the Hindutva movement makes of that assumption.

  22. For example, the Social Science textbook made by NCERT for Class VI attributed Āryabhaṭa’s fifth-century clarifications about the diurnal motion of the earth – as opposed to the sun going round the earth – to the Vedic period, thousands of years earlier. See the extract in Saffronised and Substandard, p. 31.

  23. Natwar Jha and N. S. Rajaram, The Deciphered Indus Script (New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 2000).

  24. ‘Horseplay in Harappa’, Frontline, 17 (13 Oct. 2000).

  25. See R. E. Latham (ed.), The Travels of Marco Polo (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1958), pp. 250–51.

  26. As Aijaz Ahmad has argued, commenting on the violence of the historical process that led to the partition of India, ‘neither the high-caste Hindu nor the genteel and propertied Muslim, neither the fatefully communal forms of our modernity nor the exclusivist practices of our anti-colonial reform movements’ were entirely free of cultivating the ‘savageries of the politics of identity’ (Lineages of the Present: Ideology and Politics in Contemporary South Asia, London: Verso, 2000, pp. xi-xii).

  27. From a letter to C. F. Andrews, dated 13 March 1921, published in Letters to a Friend (London: Allen & Unwin, 1928). See also Essay 5.

  ESSAY 4. THE DIASPORA AND THE WORLD

  1. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1
996), p. 71.

  2. Trans. Vincent A. Smith, Akbar: The Great Mogul (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1917), p. 257.

  3. See M. Athar Ali, ‘The Perception of India in Akbar and Abu’l Fazl’, in Irfan Habib (ed.), Akbar and His India (Delhi and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 220, and also my essay, ‘The Reach of Reason: East and West’, New York Review of Books, 47 (20 July 2000), included in this volume as Essay 13.

  4. Other features of the many-sided colonial impact on ideas and emotions in India have been studied by a number of distinguished historians in India. See e.g. Tapan Raychaudhuri, Perceptions, Emotions, Sensibilities: Essays on India’s Colonial and Post-Colonial Experiences (New Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), and Sumit Sarkar, A Critique of Colonial India (Calcutta: Papyrus Publishing House, 2000). The important subject of the origins of nationality in the subcontinent during British rule is investigated in C. A. Bayly, Origins of Nationality in South Asia: Patriotism and Ethical Government in the Making of Modern India (Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

  5. T. B. Macaulay, ‘Indian Education: Minute of the 2nd February, 1835’, repr. in G. M. Young (ed.), Macaulay: Prose and Poetry (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1952), p. 722.

  6. The gripping story that William Dalrymple tells in his masterly novel White Mughals (London: Flamingo, 2002) about love in eighteenth-century India, when a third of the British in India were living with Indian women, is a distinctly early empire phenomenon. As the Raj solidified over the following century, with its theories of distance between the British and Indian peoples (a line of thinking of which James Mill was a principal theorist), the mainstream of social relations radically changed, even though there were many individual cases of close personal ties stretching over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

  7. Ranajit Guha, Dominance without Hegemony (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997).