by Amartya Sen
*The assessment of Mill’s analysis of Indian works on science and mathematics that follows here corresponds to the discussion of Mill’s critique, in Essay 4, though the focus here is on the nature of external evaluation from the ‘magisterial’ perspective, rather than on the impact of Mill’s characterization on Indian self-identification.
*Indeed, in conceptualizing ‘the good life’ even from the perspective of the deprived underdog, it would be a mistake to ignore altogether the intellectual achievements of the elite, since part of the deprivation of the exploited lies precisely in being denied participation in these achievements. While Marx might have exaggerated a little in his eloquence about ‘the idiocy of the village life’, there is nevertheless a substantial point here in identifying the nature of social deprivation. There is, in fact, no basic contradiction in choosing the subaltern perspective of history and taking systematic note of the scholarly accomplishments of the elite.
*Gita Mehta makes excellent use of the Indian game of snakes and ladders to help interpret modern India (Snakes and Ladders: Glimpses of Modern India, New York: Anchor Books, 1998).
*For many useful comments and suggestions, I am extremely grateful to Patricia Mirrlees, Sugata Bose, Geoffrey Lloyd, David McMullen, Emma Rothschild, Roel Sterckx, Sun Shuyun and Rosie Vaughan. A shorter version of this paper was published in the New York Review of Books, 2 Dec. 2004.
†There are accounts of more than 200 Chinese scholars who spent extensive periods of time in India in this period; see Tan Yun-Shan, Sino-Indian Culture (Calcutta: Visva-Bharati, 1998).
*If the disaffected Arab activist today is induced to take pride only in the purity of Islam, rather than in the many-sided richness of Arab history, the unique prioritization of religion has certainly played a big part in that interpretational enclosure. There is an increased tendency also to see the broad civilization of India as just ‘Hindu civilization’ – to use the monothematic phrase favoured both by cultural classifiers like Samuel Huntington and by Hindu political activists (on this see Essay 1 above). The narrowing effects of some types of identity-based thinking, including the privileging of a singular identity, are discussed in my forthcoming book, Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny, to be published by Norton, New York.
*These were the statues of Buddha that were destroyed recently by the Taliban, thirteen centuries after Xuanzang wrote eloquently about them.
*It appears that there were early attempts at printing by Indian Buddhists as well. Indeed, Yi Jing, the Chinese scholar who visited India in the seventh century, apparently encountered prints of Buddhist images on silk and paper in India, but these were probably rather primitive image blocks. A little earlier, Xuanzang is said to have printed pictures of an Indian scholar (Bhadra) as he returned to China from India. On this early history, see Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), vol. V, part i, pp. 148–9.
†Kumārajīva was a half-Indian and half-Kucian scholar (from east Turkestan), who studied in India but had a leading position at the Institute of Foreign Languages and Literatures in Xian [Changan], from 402 CE. Yao Xing, the king and the patron of Kumārajīva, bestowed on him the title ‘the Teacher of the Nation’. The ‘Diamond Sutra’ was one of seventy or so Sanskrit books that Kumārajīva is reputed to have translated (of these, more than thirty have been authenticated), in addition to writing commentaries on Nāgārjuna, the Indian Buddhist philosopher, and on Daode Jing (also known as Tao tö king), the Taoist classic. The Diamond Sutra itself was translated into Chinese many – perhaps even a dozen – times. But it is the translation of this Sanskrit document by Kumārajīva that has the distinction of being the first dated printed book in the world.
*I have discussed the causal factors underlying the phenomenon of ‘missing women’ in ‘More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing’, New York Review of Books, 20 Dec. 1990; ‘Missing Women’, British Medical Journal, 304 (7 Mar. 1992); ‘Missing Women Revisited’, British Medical Journal, 327 (6 Dec. 2003). See also Essay 11 in this volume.
†On this see my ‘Population: Delusion and Reality’, New York Review of Books, 22 Sept. 1994, and ‘Fertility and Coercion’, University of Chicago Law Review, 63 (Summer 1996). See also Essay 9, below.
‡See National Bureau of Statistics of China, China Statistical Yearbook 2003 (Beijing: China Statistics Press, 2003), table 4.17, p. 118. Chinese big cities, in particular Shanghai and Beijing, outmatch the state of Kerala, but most Chinese provinces have life expectancy figures far lower than Kerala’s.
*This connection is similar to the more prominent observation that major famines do not occur in democracies, even when they are very poor, on which see my ‘How Is India Doing?’, New York Review of Books, Christmas Number 1982, and jointly with Jean Drèze, Hunger and Public Action (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989). Large famines, which continued to occur in British India right up to the end (the last – the Bengal famine of 1943 – was just four years before India’s independence), disappeared abruptly with the establishment of a multi-party democracy in India. In contrast, China had the largest famine in recorded history during 1958–61, when nearly 30 million people, it is estimated, died.
†It is possible that the sharp increase of economic inequality in recent years in China may have also contributed to the slowing down of the progress in life expectancy. There has, in fact, been some increase in economic inequality in India as well, though nothing as sharp as in China. But it is interesting – and relevant to the role of democracy – that even that more moderate increase in inequality seems to have played a major part in the defeat of the ruling government in New Delhi in the elections held in May 2004. There were other factors, too, that contributed to the defeat, in particular the violation of the rights of the Muslim minority in the sectarian riots in Gujarat (it is, of course, to the credit of a deliberative democratic system that majority voting can respond to the plight of minorities and the need for less biased political priorities).
*This is an extended and updated text of an essay published in the Financial Times on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Indian independence, on 15 August 1997.
*For an illuminating set of studies, see Atul Kohli (ed.), The Success of India’s Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). See also Granville Austin’s meticulous investigation, Working of a Democratic Constitution: The Indian Experience (New Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), along with his earlier book on the nature and history of the constitution of India, Indian Constitution: The Cornerstone of a Nation (New Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966). See also Judith M. Brown, Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1984).
†Indira Gandhi’s brief attempt in the 1970s at curtailing basic political and civil rights was firmly rejected by the voters, thereby electorally ending the proposal as well as her government. Even in that misguided initiative, there was, however, no attempt to replace elections, nor any proposal for ignoring the electoral verdict. Indira Gandhi took her defeat with good grace, and, after dropping her plans to prune political and civil rights, she returned to being Prime Minister with a victory in general elections within a few years with a strongly democratic platform.
‡Among the more recent efforts of the Supreme Court is its attempt to have a fair trial of the miscreants in Gujarat responsible for the killings – mostly of Muslims – in 2002. The Supreme Court found the acquittal of the accused in the judicial process in Gujarat to be lacking in due process, and has insisted that the accused be retried outside Gujarat, which is still ruled by the same state government which was in office during the uncontrolled riots in 2002.
*This static comparison is, however, somewhat deceptive since the life expectancy gap between China and India has sharply declined after 1980, and some parts of India, notably Kerala, have overtaken China and gone considerably ahead of it. In this change over time, public reasoning and democracy in India have made, i
t would appear, a significant contribution. These issues are discussed in the last part of Essay 8, and also in my ‘Passage to China’, New York Review of Books, 2 Dec. 2004.
†A new problem that is clearly serious in India is the rapid spread of HIV infection and AIDS. Public efforts to confront this new hazard are still extremely inadequate.
*In Essay 8, I also consider the converse, that is, what China may find useful in India’s experiences. This issue is not taken up in the present essay.
*On this and related issues, see Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen, India: Economic Development and Social Opportunity (Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), and the follow-up book: India: Development and Participation (Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
†In addition to traditional problems of ill-health, the new epidemic of HIV infection and AIDS will have devastating effects both on human lives and on economic and social operations unless they are adequately confronted without any further delay.
*This general issue is discussed in my Development as Freedom (New York: Knopf, and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
†The elimination of large famines in India must not, however, be seen as the removal of undernutrition and hunger. Indeed, India has a very high proportion of undernourished people, who are chronically hungry, to varying extents. The problem of persistent underfeeding is discussed in Essay 10.
‡We must, however, distinguish between cases of good results brought about by strong political commitment and any expectation that authoritarian leadership would, in general, produce such results. North Korea is authoritarian too, as was the Taliban’s Afghanistan, Idi Amin’s Uganda and Mobutu’s Congo. The central point at issue concerns political vision rather than coercive power.
*Along with the positive achievements of radical left-wing politics, its problematic side should be recognized too. Kerala has been comparatively slow in reforming economic policies in a market-utilizing direction. While people from Kerala have easily earned good money working elsewhere (often abroad – much in the Gulf), the opportunity of taking economic initiatives at home has moved relatively slowly. This has not prevented Kerala from experiencing one of the fastest reductions of poverty in India, but the full economic potentials of its social advantages still remain partly unreaped. On this and related issues, see Drèze and Sen, India: Development and Participation.
*See Essay 1, section headed ‘Gender, Caste and Voice’, and Essay 2.
*See Essay 11 on a general assessment of gender inequality in India and its changes over time.
†The inadequacy of steps taken so far to confront the growing epidemic of HIV infection and AIDS is also both a governmental failure (in the form of inaction) and a failure of political engagement (in the form of comparative silence).
*This essay is based on my Nehru Lecture, given in New Delhi on 13 Nov. 2001.
†Jawaharlal Nehru’s speech, delivered at the Constituent Assembly, New Delhi, is included in Jawaharlal Nehru: An Anthology, ed. Sarvepalli Gopal (Oxford and Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983).
*We discuss the role of inadequacy of public discussion in the formulation and persistence of faulty public policy in our joint book, Drèze and Sen, India: Economic Development and Social Opportunity (Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), and in the follow-up monograph, India: Development and Participation (Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
*The investigation cited was carried out by Kumar Rana, Abdur Rafique and Amrita Sengupta, working with me. Our first Education Report presents the main findings from the first part of the study: The Delivery of Public Education: A Study in West Bengal (New Delhi: Pratichi Trust, 2002).
*The recent initiative of the Indian government (in late 2004) to help provide cooked midday meals in schools across the country is a very positive move that has emerged since the Nehru Lecture was given in 2001. This initiative, which followed directly from the Indian Supreme Court’s visionary decision to cover this right among the entitlements of children, has favourable potential in simultaneously addressing the twin problems of child undernourishment and school absenteeism. It has had much success in states (such as Tamil Nadu) where it has been in use for many years, and it is beginning to have positive effects where it is just being introduced. Investigations by the Pratichi Trust team in West Bengal record higher school attendance and a high level of satisfaction from the poorer families.
*This essay is based on the text for the Sunanda Bhandare Memorial Lecture I gave in Delhi (titled ‘The Nature and Consequences of Gender Inequality’) on 14 Nov. 2001. Sunanda Bhandare was an outstanding Indian judge and a leading social and legal thinker, and it was a great privilege for me to join in the celebration of her memory. I am also grateful for helpful discussions with Bina Agarwal, Satish Agnihotri, Jean Drèze, Devaki Jain and V. K. Ramachandran.
*The role of agency, in addition to that of well-being, is quite central to the process of development, as I have tried to discuss in Development as Freedom (New York: Knopf, and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
*I have discussed the methodology involved in estimating the number of missing women and the principal results in ‘Missing Women’, British Medical Journal, 304 (7 Mar. 1992), and ‘Missing Women Revisited’, British Medical Journal, 327 (6 Dec. 2003). See also my joint book with Jean Drèze, Hunger and Public Action (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989).
*Also, as was discussed in Essay 1, there has been a higher involvement of women in leadership positions in the Indian struggle for independence than in the Russian or Chinese revolutionary movements, and the Congress Party had women Presidents fifty years earlier than any major British political party. On the other hand, the ratio of women members of the Indian parliament is at this time significantly lower than in Britain. There is a strong move in India to find ways and means of making sure that a third of the parliamentary members are women, but there is much disagreement on how to bring this about.
*I have tried to discuss this issue in my ‘Gender and Cooperative Conflict’, in Irene Tinker (ed.), Persistent Inequalities (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990); see also the extensive literature on household inequalities cited there. See also Nancy Folbre, ‘Hearts and Spades: Paradigms of Household Economics’, World Development, 14 (1986), and Marianne A. Ferber and Julie A. Nelson (eds.), Beyond Economic Man (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1993).
*In her insightful reports on India in the New York Times in 2001, Celia Dugger noted that the officials in charge of enforcing the ban on sex determination of fetuses frequently cited difficulties in achieving successful prosecution due to the reluctance of mothers to give evidence for the use of such techniques, which are often requested specifically by the mothers involved.
*On this, see my ‘Well-being, Agency and Freedom: The Dewey Lecture 1984’, Journal of Philosophy, 83 (Apr. 1985); ‘Open and Closed Impartiality’, Journal of Philosophy, 99 (Sept. 2002); and Rationality and Freedom (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002).
*Published in Econometrica, 1950. This was among the papers cited by the Royal Swedish Academy in awarding Nash the Nobel Prize in economics in 1994.
†On the last, see my ‘How to Judge Globalism’, American Prospect, Jan. 2002.
‡On this, see my Collective Choice and Social Welfare (San Francisco: Holden-Day, 1970; repr. Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1979), chs. 8 and 8*, and also ‘Gender and Cooperative Conflict’, in Tinker (ed.), Persistent Inequalities.
*On these and related general issues, see my ‘Population: Delusion and Reality’, New York Review of Books, 22 Sept. 1994; ‘Fertility and Coercion’, University of Chicago Law Review, 63 (Summer 1996); Development as Freedom, chs. 6, 8 and 9.
*On the extensive role and reach of capabilities of women, see particularly Martha Nussbaum, Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
*This essay is based on the first Dorothy Hodgkin Lecture at the Annual Pugwash C
onference in Cambridge, England, on 8 August 2000. For helpful comments, I am grateful to Jean Dréze, Ayesha Jalal, V. K. Ramachandran and Emma Rothschild. A considerably shortened version of this essay was published earlier in the New Republic, 25 Sept. 2000.
*I have tried to explore the connections between the two sets of questions in the analysis of economic problems in my ‘Rational Fools: A Critique of the Behavioral Foundations of Economic Theory’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 6 (1977), and On Ethics and Economics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987).
†Rabindranath Tagore, Nationalism (London: Macmillan, 1917; new edn. with an Introduction by E. P. Thompson, 1991).
*Kenzaburo Oe, Japan, the Ambiguous, and Myself (Tokyo and New York: Kodansha International, 1995).
†Postscript: since this essay was written for the 2000 Pugwash conference, Dr Kalam has been elected as the President of the Republic of India.
*The so-called PROBE report cites two distinct estimates made by two government committees, which came to roughly the same figure; see Public Report on Basic Education in India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999).