The Hindu : New Delhi News : Amartya Sen makes a case for argumentative tradition

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Dec 19, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Amartya Sen makes a case for argumentative tradition

By Mandira Nayar

NEW DELHI, DEC. 18. It was a date with probably the country's most famous "argumentative" Indian — Amartya Sen. With a large crowd gathering at the India Habitat Centre here on Friday afternoon to hear Professor Sen hold forth on "India: Large and Small.'' And the lecture lived up to its theme in more ways than one.

Beginning on a "dangerous'' note, by asking questions of great naivete, Prof. Sen said: "If we feel an affinity with the nation, it is your duty to ask what kind of country this is. It is not traditional to ask such questions of naivety, but since I am not a tamer of lions nor a trapeze artiste or a politician seeking election, I can ask these questions."

And making a case for the argumentative tradition in India, Prof. Sen stated: "There is a case for focus on the argumentative tradition in India and continuing it today. There is a bigger tradition of argument in India which has earned us a dubious reputation from Krishna Menon's speech in the United Nations which was nine and a half hours non-stop, which remains unbroken till today. Al Baruni also came close to saying that Indians speak eloquently about topics they know nothing about. We love to speak."

While tracing the argumentative legacy from the length of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana that is much more than the "modest Homer could put together" to Jain scholars' conversation with Alexander to Ashoka and Akbar's religious discourses, Prof. Sen emphasised its continuing contemporary relevance. "I have focussed on the argumentative tradition as a matter of choice and I realise that it is not the only reasonable way to view history, culture and politics in India. However, I feel that it has continuing contemporary relevance. There is a neglect of it in cultural discourse. The acceptance of heterodoxy and dialogues has brought relevance to secularism and democracy in India."

Adding that the argumentative tradition could be broken into affirmation and scrutiny as well as critique which are needed in a democracy, the Nobel Laureate said: "There are good reasons to be optimistic. The Indian economy has suffered from chronic inactivity in areas like education and health care and over-activeness in others like licence Raj. Manmohan Singh tackled the latter in his economic policy in 1991, but did not manage the first. However, there is considerable evidence that there is more commitment to the first in this Government which he is heading."

The Employment Guarantee Bill was a cause for jubilation as far as the affirmation of dealing with policies for the poor was concerned, Prof. Sen asserted. "But now there needs to be a critique of how this will be put into action. There is a need for reaching physical infrastructure to these areas. The opportunity costs need to be scrutinised. The Act is a result of public agitation so if it fails the penalty will also be hard. Public agitation is a scarce resource and should also be used to put pressure in building schools and hospitals as well as dealing with the absenteeism of officials in schools and hospitals catering to the lowest starta of society.''

On minority rights and secularism, Prof. Sen said it was important to see the long tradition of heterodoxy in the country that had a direct relevance to the roles of democracy and secularism today. Though there could not be any single-factor explanation for the Bharatiya Janata Party losing the last general elections, the Godhra incident was one of the reasons. "Not only were the voters keen on bringing down the BJP itself a notch or two (its percentage of voting support fell from 25 to 22), there are reasons to entertain the hypothesis that the secular support that the BJP allies delivered to the BJP-led alliance was particularly imperilled by the Hindutva movement's aggressive — and sometimes violent — undermining of a secular India and the complete failure of the BJP's allies to resist the extermination of Hindutva."

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