The Argumentative Indian by Amartya Sen: A Critical Review

It is a book on Indian History, culture and identity by the Nobel Laureate  Amartya Sen. He is economist attempting history writing. People across the world and India read it, blog it, believe it, write about it, refer it in future books! It has potential disastrous implications as it has many errors and narrow views on Hinduism & its culture presented by the author. The title makes us proud and we expect lot of pride exhibited throughout the book for the argumentative culture ingrained in the Indian culture. And that making our democracy thrive by our inherent nature. Sadly there is whole lot of sheen taken away from the book by the author’s obsession on politics, linking it to Gujarat riots and dedicating much debate on it. Author finds himself very guilty of being Indian origin rather than exhibiting pride and enthusing the youth to embrace the golden culture that we have.

 Aryan Invasion Theory

A quote of a paragraph from the book:

"
Despite its quintessential ‘Indianness’ , there is a general understanding that, in an early form, Sanskrit came to India from abroad in the 2^nd millennium BCE, with the migration of Indo-Europeans, and then it developed further and flourished magnificently in India. It is also interesting to note that the greatest grammarian in Sanskrit, namely Panini, who systematized and transformed Sanskrit grammar and phonetics around the fourth century BCE, was of Afghan origin (he describes his village on the banks of river Kabul). These foreign connections have not diminished the pride of classically minded Indians in that great language, nor in the exceptional achievements of the literature ….
"

Sanskrit came to India? From Europe? That’s a construed writing of history.

Max Mueller, a German Scholar, has done enough damage by his elaborate work in the past dictating that Aryans invaded India from central Asia & Europe. During his later years he himself has casted doubts over this invasion theory. The British historians conveniently ignored those reservations. Their imperial mindset compelled them to keep the invasion theory intact to undermine the Indians self-confidence. In post-independence also we read this invasion theory in our text books. I believe now it is corrected.

Following are some of the objections on this invasion theory:

1.       Author writes elsewhere Ashoka of 3^rd century BCE had his kingdom till today’s Afghanistan. Author shows his ignorance of that of the culture of India was there till Iran on east and Malaya, Indonesia in west. Just because Panini was from today’s Afghanistan, Sanskrit according to the author becomes a foreigner’s language. He deliberately ignores Afghanistan was Gandhara kingdom earlier. And that is also mentioned elsewhere in the same book in some other context. If Sanskrit was in Pataliputra (today’s patna), Kalinga and south of vindhyas and spread all the way upto Hindu Kush mountain ranges in afghanistan, then it means it was centered in India spread wide east and west. If it was European language it would start spreading from there. There is no evidential trace of that in history.

 

2.       All the references in Vedas, Upanishads have relations to the geographical boundary of the Indian subcontinent. The great Ramayana and Mahabharatha are considered as Ithihasa (History). These are written by specific authors Valmiki and Vyasa later than the Vedas. The geographical references in these books are spread all over the Indian subcontinent. Shiva’s abode of Kailasa is well revered by the Hindus, is in the Himalayas. All over India from Himalayas to Lanka, the mountains, rivers, villages, kingdoms, names of the people, local language scripts, poems, prose, books are inspired and derive everything from these rich ancient scriptures. Later the temples are built for the respective gods. One fails to understand where Europeans immigrating or invading India comes in these references. Europeans civilizations also don’t have these geographical references. Nor our scriptures mention Andes, Danube or Volga or anything close to that. The weather, tropical living, flora fauna references found in these scriptures are all related to Indian Subcontinent. If intelligent Europeans migrated here then surely they would write some reference to their previous dwelling. Or did they become suddenly intelligent once they touched Indian soil? No reference to that also. Their culture also differs quite widely. We worship cow as Gomatha. They use it as beef.  

3.       There is a section of historians who write about reference to horses which are aliens to the Indian subcontinent in the Sanskrit scriptures. Amartya Sen also take support of these arguments. These arguments are defeated by the fact that the trade existed across borders.  And horses might have got traded across to India from central Asia. And there is no richness of these language or cultural traditions in those areas equaling the Indus civilization, although the evidences of Greek civilization dates further back. Also the European countries also had to depend upon central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan etc.,) for fine horses. And then domesticate and grow further.  

4.       Even today, the philosophical depth found in India is unparalleled in the west. There is a vast difference in the culture of assimilation of diversity in India and the separatism & exclusivity expounded by the western cultures. There is no archeological evidence of invasion, nor there any cultural similarities.

Muslim Assimilation In India’s Culture

The author in his desperate attempt to appease the Muslim invaders & settlers in India, ends up criticizing today’s Hindus unnecessarily. Cultural assimilation attempts made by Akbar take great precedence in the book. No problem with that. Because Akbar, being a Muslim ruler and educated in Islam, still makes sincere attempts to assimilate the diversity purely based on reasoning.  No other Muslim ruler comes ever closer to that kind of tolerance for the divergence in the society. Every Muslim ruler either attacked the other religions places of worship or tried to convert the people and places of worship to Islam. In the book here, author says, there were some sporadic incidents like this from some Muslim rulers. Stating Aurangazeb, being the only least tolerant of the Muslim rulers, he takes on the todays Hindu’s discriminating and attacking Muslims.

Firstly, obviously the author has least knowledge or has shown deliberate ignorance about the Indian history and the Muslim rulers of the Moghuls, Bahmani sultanate, Tipu Sultan running a riot of faith conversions and destructions of temples of indigenous cultures.  

Secondly, in today’s India, the intolerance and separatism espoused by the Muslims is only increasing and creating pockets of Pakistan across India. In every riot, the instigators are Muslims. From their own community a prophet or a fakir has to emerge out to preach a sense of love towards other humans, throw their fears, and assimilate in the society. In fact several such fakirs came in their community at least in large numbers in India. Like Santha Shishunala Sharifa in Northern Karnataka came in the late 19^th century CE, and preached Allah and Allama are all same. But he got ousted from the inner learned circles of Islam and mosques. But the people at large across Hindus, Muslims respected and even today he is revered. Same is the case with Shirdi Sai Baba and several other such great saints across India.  

The belief that Mohammed is the last prophet and no one else can be prophet is retrograde. The social change is necessary in every region and every generation. There is constant cycle of evil overtaking good; and good then emerging through, creating a higher influence in the society. But both have a time and region context.

The scriptures guiding the Islam are never allowed to change. There is no debate. There is no reasoning allowed. Akbar himself initiated a religion Din-I-Lahi based on reasoning. But where is it now? The Sufi-ism which gave raise to some of the fine songs, music and love for humanity is out of the doors of the staunch Isalm. There is fatwa on Singing and dancing. Where comes love & tolerance then?

It should be noted that the Akbar’s attempts of assimilation of different cultures was the result of his open mindedness towards India’s diversity and positively influenced by it. And not that Akbar influenced India to be tolerant & argumentative. Similarly, Aurangazeb’s intolerance towards other religions was due to his Isalmic education and not due to his exposure to India’s multi-culture.

We must take pride in our culture creating positive influence on foreign invaders than trying to pacify Muslims by stating their rule was tolerant. It will be a lie.

Instead, we must look critically at why Muslim rule was intolerant and why are they espousing separatism even today. And why our politicians should not keep their culture on sale for votes. And debate it openly involving them amicably and asking for changing their stance for the good of the country, good of humanity. People are people, simple and moldable. The prophets, mullahs are intelligent, powerful influencers on people, should mold them in the right way. Create a tolerant community towards diversity and respect the India’s culture of argumentation and debate based on logic and reasoning. Author here doesn’t even delve this problem and solution area in such an interesting titled book. Honestly the title is such apt for a glorious cultural India. But the content is very disappointing and demoralizing for an Indian.

Obsession with Akbar

Here is another narrow view from the author quoted:

"
For India in particular, the tradition of secularism can be traced to the trend of tolerant and pluralist thinking that had begun to take root well before Akbar, …. But that tradition got its firmest official backing from Emperor Akbar himself. He also practiced as he preached – abolishing discriminatory taxes imposed earlier on non-muslims, …
"

Begun to take root? Firmest official backing? What is official? Is it only if it is from a pan India emperor? Obviously Amartya has only read Akbar and is obsessed with him. If other “official” rulers, kings, maharajas spread across India for many thousand years were not tolerant, plural there wouldn’t have been such a large canvas of culture, language, songs, music, dance forms, architecture, and many other human arts. The major philosophies like Advaitha, Vishishtadwaita, Dwaita flourished through debates, reasoning, interpretations of the vedas. These happened under the patronage of many kings in their courts across India. One simple example: Hoysala raja Bittideva was a Jain king of 11^th century became disciple of Ramanujacharya and became vaishnavaite, not at the point of sword edge, but through reasoning and understanding. He never destroyed Jain temples. Nor his successors did that. His wife, most revered in Karnataka for her dancing grace, Shantala, remained a devout Jain. Later Hoysala kingdom got destroyed and temples attacked by the Foreign Mohammedan invaders.

“abolishing discriminatory taxes imposed earlier on non-muslims”. Before Akbar there were about half a dozen Moghul rulers. That means here Amartya himself admits, that all of them supported imposing taxes on non-Muslims. After him, Aurangazeb brings back the pilgrimage taxation etc., That means Akbar is the only exception to discrimination culture of the Muslim rulers. And not as author keeps repeating that it was sporadic incidents of discrimination by the Muslim rulers. There are several incidents of Akbar being discriminatory against non-Muslims. But still, being a born Muslim and educated in Islam, I must admit he is a brave man to have taken such radical steps away from that religion’s dictate and managing the wrath of his advisors. May be that’s why ultimately he was overthrown by the faithful Islamist Aurangazeb.  

 India - China

India-China is a chapter I liked. Because we have in them, a comparison between a large thriving democracy and a large flexing economic superpower which is non-democratic next door. There are 2 types of statistical data generally studied in economics.

1.       Index of richness of a country are generally GDP, GNP. This will generally be due to the wealth generated and concentrated by few.

2.       Others indicate the disparity between the Haves and Have nots. For example, the literacy rate, women literacy, Life expectancy, Infant mortality rate, Gender ratio etc., because these are overall population literacy & health indicators. The population health and literacy is the real richness of a country. It automatically maintains even ecological richness.

In both these parameters China is ahead of India. But the interesting part is the progress made since economic reforms. The China and most other Asian countries like Taiwan, Korea initiated their reforms in the 80s. India initiated the reforms big time from ‘92 onwards. The improvement in the 2^nd set of parameters above by China during the reforms years is marginal. And in contrast India’s improvement is significant and is catching up overall and in several states better than China’s. And that largely is credited to the participative democracy. And also the author credits India for having No Famine in post Independent India as against China having seen famine in as late as 1960’s in communist china, perishing some 30+ million lives. In British India, we experienced Bengal Famine of 1940’s causing some 2 million deaths due to starvation and diseases.

And during NDA regime, India’s stats in the first indices soared high. But it lost the elections subsequently. Amartya doesn’t leave the opportunity to criticize the NDA regime along with connecting the reason for loss to the Gujarat riots. In any case, it would be good for the country if BJP leaders listen to the Sangh parivar’s socialist economic policy suggestions for the future.

In many South Indian temple sculptures I have visited, the local guides proudly present some of the Chinese visitors sculpted. Fa-Hian and Huen-Tsang are 2 of many such Chinese scholars who visited India during 4^th and 7^th century respectively. Interestingly they studied and held high positions in Nalanda for decade long. And what they carried back to their country apart from the philosophy & science is the implementation methodology of health care services in India.

The first dated printed book is a Chinese book of translation of a Sanskrit treatise. So the invention of printing technology is credited to China. But author argues that, Huen-Tsang carried Buddhist printed books to china from India. The printing technology has played significant role in public communication, literacy and schooling. But unfortunately, India lost many technologies, literature, research during the Nalanda destruction by the foreign invaders. 

I have here tried to put my views on the book taking contradictions within the book itself as much as possible. But history is very large and that too India’s is immense. We expect a lot from a book so aptly titled to describe the debate and argumentation based culture in India. The book in that aspect disappoints big time limiting only to Akbar, Tagore-Gandhi arguments and that’s it. Gandhian Charaka movement is jeered by Amartya in this book. Being an economist, that too an expert on famines, how his views are dismissive of Human Labour Oriented Cottage Industries and appreciative of Productivity based Industries? Is Nobel also rigged? In favor of Productivity based industries & economics?