The Argumentative Amartya?

Re: # 6
//....A Whiteman to Indian is like God. The most practical example is the kind of reverence Sonia gets in Indian village because she almost or at least looks white....//

So does Laloo.... or any other politician with so called ``charisma``....... Sonia without the ``gandhi`` lastname would be a complete nobody - the ``reverence`` she gets is because of her last name, NOT her skin color......

Whiteman was considered ``Mlechha``[something derogatory - don`t know what it exactly means] when he was ruling India...... I am sure there are some people who take whiteman as god - but most people don`t......

Re: # 6 HP
//...... large majority of otherwise educated middleclass or lower middleclass talk about the lasting impression of yoga and Indian cuisine on the Westerns societies.....//

Sure - but that`s part of their contribution to the wider world,.... these stuff, in some ways, represent Indian civilization ..... there is nothing wrong in taking pride in one`s culture and contributions, however exaggerated it may be......

Just for comparison - aemericans boast of their culture being emulated everywhere, which is true.... but then only the top elite of any country really affected by american culture.... millions of ``common`` folks don`t......

It`s something similar with Yoga too - elite have a fascination for it...... joe six pack thinks its voodoo..... As far as Indian cuisine - in UK, the has spread deeper.....

washingtonpost.com
A Passage to India
A Nobel Prize-winning economist explores his homeland`s rich and quarrelsome heritage.

Reviewed by Shashi Tharoor
Sunday, October 16, 2005; BW03



THE ARGUMENTATIVE INDIAN

Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity

By Amartya Sen

Farrar Straus Giroux. 409 pp. $26


If you laid all the economists in the world end to end, the old joke goes, you would never reach a conclusion. So it`s all the more remarkable that it is as a practitioner of the ``dismal science`` that Amartya Sen won the Nobel Prize in 1998. Sen is a man of conclusions; he is also brilliant at marshalling, with both extensive research and empirical evidence, the arguments that justify his conclusions. The Argumentative Indian -- a collection of 16 essays, many reworked and expanded from lectures and previously published articles -- is an intellectual tour de force from an economist who can lay equal claim to the designations of sociologist, historian, political analyst and moral philosopher. It is a magisterial work, except that the adjective is not one of which Sen would approve.

That is because Sen uses it, along with ``exoticist`` and ``curatorial,`` to describe the three perspectives from which the West has tended to view India (each of which he dissects and discredits with precision and finesse). He is particularly critical of the Western overemphasis on India`s religiosity at the expense of any recognition of the country`s equally impressive rationalist, scientific, mathematical and secular heritage, fields treated by Orientalists as ``Western spheres of success.``

``There is certainly a need for some emendation here,`` Sen adds dryly. Emendation he provides, in capacious detail. Sen convincingly demonstrates that Asian (and specifically Indian) traditions of rationality and scientific liberalism go further back than Western ones and have been just as important as the religious or mystical strains in shaping India`s heritage. There is none of the economist`s propensity to theorize on the basis of airy assumptions here; Sen`s arguments are grounded in a keenly felt, deeply empathetic reading of Indian history and culture, augmented by a breadth and depth of research (extensively footnoted) that is breathtaking in its range and scholarly eclecticism. The essays are also informed by Sen`s passionate concern for the impoverished, undernourished and marginalized, especially women. The Nobel citation lauded him for restoring ``an ethical dimension to the discussion of vital economic problems,`` and a strong moral sense is never absent from his prose.

To reduce such a richly diverse book to a couple of main themes is a disservice, for there is much here to reward the careful reader (notably two startlingly educative essays on the ancient roots of relations between India and China). Particularly pleasurable is Sen`s masterly reclaiming of Rabindranath Tagore`s reputation from the unjust misjudgment of him in the West as a mediocre mystic poet rather than the rationalist and humanist genius and polymath Sen convincingly depicts. But -- disservice aside -- two principal arguments emerge from this collection: an affirmation of India`s political and cultural heterogeneity, and of the ``reach of reason`` in India`s intellectual traditions. Even an essay on the films of Satyajit Ray (the only Indian director to win an Oscar for lifetime achievement) affirms Sen`s case for India`s absorptive culture. ``In our heterogeneity and in our openness lies our pride, not our disgrace,`` Sen writes. ``Satyajit Ray taught us this, and that lesson is profoundly important for India. And for Asia, and for the world.``

Sen`s argument for his idea of India is constructed not just in opposition to Western stereotyping but also to the homegrown Hindutva (``Hindu-ness``) movement, which in recent years has sought power on a platform asserting that India is a Hindu nation that ought to be a Hindu state, while defining Hinduism in crudely sectarian terms, both as a religion and as a badge of cultural and political identity. In several of the essays in this collection, Sen demolishes each of these ``narrow and bellicose`` premises of Hindutva, along with Western religious reductionism. Sen reminds us that even the sacred epic the Ramayana , much beloved of today`s Hindu revivalists, features the skeptic Javali, who advises the god-king Ram that ``there is no after-world, nor any religious practice for attaining that. . . . [Religious] injunctions . . . have been laid down in the [scriptures] by clever people, just to rule over [other] people.`` India`s skeptical tradition is as old as the Rigveda , composed around 1500 B.C., when most Europeans were clad in animal skins. ``Who really knows?`` it asks about creation. ``Who will here proclaim it? Whence was it produced?. . . perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not -- the one who looks down on it, in the highest heaven, only he knows -- or perhaps he does not know.``

I love that final ``or perhaps he does not know.`` The reach of rationality in Indian thinking goes far; Hinduism is the only major religion with an explicit tradition of agnosticism within it. Equally important is the tradition of secular tolerance practiced by such rulers as the Buddhist Emperor Ashoka and the Muslim Emperor Akbar some 1,800 years apart.

Sen points out that Ashoka`s edicts promoted the human rights of all in the 3rd century before Christ, a time when Aristotle`s writings on freedom explicitly excluded women and slaves, an exception the Indian monarch did not make. At a time when the Catholics of Europe were tyrannizing each other, persecuting Jews with the Inquisition and burning heretics at the stake, Akbar was proclaiming in Delhi that ``no man should be interfered with on account of religion, and anyone is to be allowed to go over to a religion that pleases him.`` Unlike in the West, Indian secularism has tended not to be about the separation of church from state and the prohibition of religious activities but about tolerance of a profusion of religions, none of which is privileged or favored by the state. To Sen, ``the Hindutva movement has entered into a confrontation with the idea of India itself.``

The essays are not merely celebratory of Sen`s ``capacious idea of India.`` In hailing the Indian argumentative tradition, Sen does not overlook the need for discourse to be politically effective, and his chapter on Indian democracy is both reasoned and critical, calling for ``broadening the force and range of political arguments and social demands.`` While hailing Indian democracy`s success in preventing the famines that occurred with depressing regularity under British colonial rule, he stresses that this does not mean the problem of chronic and endemic hunger (``a much more complex task``) has been solved. His demolition job on the Indian nuclear tests of 1998 is all the more effective for being couched in the language of reasoned discourse.

Sen is a cosmopolitan and an Indian -- and he, of course, would see no contradiction in those terms. Educated at Rabindranath Tagore`s experimental school, Shantiniketan (where the earlier Bengali Nobelist prophetically dubbed Sen ``Amartya,`` or ``immortal``), and at Cambridge University, the first non-English Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, the holder of two named professorships at Harvard, film buff, cricket fan and voracious reader, Sen embodies the yearning for heterodox learning.

There is only one problem with his rich and instructive book: He constructs his essays with such meticulous reasoning and expresses his point of view in so courteous a tone that this Indian found it difficult to pick an argument with him. A future edition will need a less contentious title. ·

Shashi Tharoor is the author of ``India: From Midnight to the Millennium`` and eight other books, including most recently ``Bookless in Baghdad: Reflections on Writing and Writers.``

Although I don`t know much abt prof sen`s work, however, i have one generic problem with the one of the above arguments... and you said ...

``Some people do well because of their sanity. Whereas insane people -- and I use the term to include those with idiosyncrasies -- succeed because they do not care whether they do or don’t. It must be taxing to spend a large part of your life wondering whether you will be rewarded or not for something that the prize-giving world will not even be aware of. ``


well.... due the linguistic limitations .... we do not have separate words to define the levels within brilliance... Dostoevsky, Maupassant, Sylvia Plath, Ayn Rand, and Ghalib, all these ppl you compared with prof. sen are at a much higher level of brilliance...and one cannot compare a normal Nobel laureate with these ppl ...prof sen could represent the usual Nobel laureate community ... which are creative but at the same time could be politically correct and there would be many example of such kind

Re: # 6

HP:


where do you get you info, man.

Sonia, the ``gungi gudia`` is relevant because she is the ``bahu`` of the Gandhi family.

in rural india such things matter a lot and congress is no fool not to take advantage of it. Even Menaka has benefitted from it, even though she is not regarded as the true benefactor of the gandhi legacy.

Why shouldn`t indians be proud of yoga/cuisine/bollywood movies/IT revolution? is there a shame in it? or should the NRI`s talk about caste killings, bride burnings, corruption in their books?

``I know the nutcase Indian crowd (DM and Sadna types) would have loved to have Modi on the list at number one probably. ``

FYI,
DM is a modi-hater.
no, we don`t care. his responsibility is to provide good governance and growth for his state. There are others to jostle for ``top five public intellectuals`` honor.

These are very convenient sentiments when you are a green-card holder in Uncle Sam’s land, teach at tony universities, and make annual trips to your roots to check how much further down the poverty line has slipped and return to your ‘naturalised home’ with these inspirations.


He`s as Indian as people living @ Malabar Hill/bhuleshwar and drinking 80Rs cups of coffee...and he`s actually given India some free publicity...

what`s your contribution to India, other than your ``Kashmiris were asking for it`` screen in that paragon of journalism, Mid-Day?

My theory is this, chowk will print anything that comes from Muslim woman.

When was the last time she wrote anything that was positive in light?

Anybody.....

Oh… Amartya must be peeing in his pants reading this autopsy of his life long work. I am always amazed to see the extent of how far some Indians will go to challenge and criticize those deemed accomplished even beyond limits imposed on the accomplished. E.g., it is very “fashionable” to scorn Gandhi among upper crust and semi intellectual Indians, both living in India and elsewhere. More power to Indian critics, and as it is said that “it is easier to Poke fun of Jesus than to twinkle the nostrils of Ayatollah”. Be happy that you are not Amartya. When I adopted a puppy, I couldn’t decide between calling him Amartya or Keynes. I ended up naming him Neo-Classical.

National issues of import that Farzana bibi addressed :

Amartya Sen is politically correct...

Laloo bared the hypocrisy that exists amongst us.....His rise is what real democracy is in India...

Media is making a mockery of the Muslim Qaum in India by covering the Gudiya episode (Never mind that media is now covering the Sarabjit`s family feud)...

Why are we trying at all to get Sarabjit free...

Kashmiri Pandits living in habitable conditions...

Kashmiri Pandits not staying put in Kashmir when they were being butchered....

Vaginas and breasts..

FV,
Your 100th article is disappointing. I dont get the point of this article. Are you criticising Amartya Sen for `Selling out` and being a normal person? I dont understand why all brilliant people need to be tortured souls..

Keeping aside the politics of Nobel prizes aside, what percentage of Nobel Economics laureates fall into the category you described as ``mad`` people? Almost none. Almost everyone of them are the elite and a part of establishment.. John Nash may be an exception, but his most important and brilliant work had been produced before he became `mad`.

Coming back to Amartya Sen`s work, the work linking lack of Democracy to Famines had been produced a few decades back, not a few years later.. Also, it might seem as a moot point now, but when Democracy is fighting against Communism and Autocratism, it is not an ordinary work to systematically link and prove the linkages between human suffering and lack of representative government..

Thanks,
Avkrishna

Could someone please write a short note on Dr. Sen`s work and why it was important enough to get a Nobel, in layman terms. Giive a break to the perpetual bak bak on Chowk please

Could someone please write a short note on Dr. Sen`s work and why it was important enough to get a Nobel, in layman terms. Giive a break to the perpetual bak bak on Chowk please

Re: # 27

Urstruly

Amartya Sen was awarded the Nobel in 1998 ``for his contributions to welfare economics.``

According to the Nobel press release, Amartya Sen (just the main points):

- made several key contributions to the research on fundamental problems in welfare economics. His contributions range from axiomatic theory of social choice, over definitions of welfare and poverty indexes, to empirical studies of famine.

- Sen has clarified the conditions which permit aggregation of individual values into collective decisions, and the conditions which permit rules for collective decision making that are consistent with a sphere of rights for the individual.

- By analyzing the available information about different individuals` welfare when collective decisions are made, he has improved the theoretical foundation for comparing different distributions of society`s welfare and defined new, and more satisfactory, indexes of poverty.

- In empirical studies, Sen`s applications of his theoretical approach have enhanced our understanding of the economic mechanisms underlying famines.

- Can the values which individual members of society attach to different alternatives be aggregated into values for society as a whole, in a way that is both fair and theoretically sound?

- Is the majority principle a workable decision rule?

- How should income inequality be measured?

- When and how can we compare the distribution of welfare in different societies?

- How should we best determine whether poverty is on the decline?

- What are the factors that trigger famines?

- Majority voting is perhaps the most common rule for making collective decisions.

Amartya Sen was born in Bengal in 1933 (citizen of India). He received his doctorate from the University of Cambridge, U.K. in 1959 and has been professor in India, the U.K. and the U.S. In 1998 he left his professorships in economics and philosophy at Harvard University to become Master of Trinity College, Cambridge U.K.

i was surprised not to see an article obout incompetence of indian govt and miltry and apathy of indian society at large towards kashmir earthquake. anyways..

nobel prize in economics is given for body of work with practical application, which may affect humanity, so many crazys dont get it. it is not given for mere `brilliant` or `creative` theories. so while rand, ghalib, maupassant and dostoyevsky may be brilliant and sick, comparison is not relevant. it would be as irrelevant as me saying they did nothing for me or anything tangible for humnkind.

nice to see HP predictably flared up ;-)

This article is apropos of nothing. It is clear that the author has little grounding in economics. If the whole thesis is Nobel Prize winners are not all geniuses, perhaps so. All I see is a petulant criticism of an NRI who is celebrated in india on account of his accomplishments.

why has my interact been `filtered`? because i said `facetious farzana`?