Asserting a new vision of India

By Kaushik Basu Professor of economics, Cornell University

Amartya Sen has written arguably his most significant book

For scientists and economists, the Nobel Prize is often an intellectual death sentence.

The honour for some deep, scientific research done (usually) in a person's youth can easily create a hankering for more. Great scientists, with egos boosted by the prize, have tried to go back to their early research.

But that is almost always futile. By the time the honour comes the magic touch is typically gone.

With his new book, The Argumentative Indian, Amartya Sen, winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in economics, has achieved something, which is rare in science and academe - he has re-invented himself.

Multicultural vision

With this book of magnificent reach and moral vision-spanning history, cultural studies and political economy, Amartya Sen has illumined a vision of India that echoes the ideas of Ashoka, Akbar and, most emphatically, Nehru.

If racism, religious intolerance, and sexism are wrong, can nationalism and patriotism, which are so often upheld as noble, be right? Your views on this column

This is a vision that emphasises the multiple and criss-crossing identities of Indians, and the shared global interests of all human beings.

Sen points out how Hindu fundamentalism hurts Hinduism and the idea of India, because it is openness and the lack of stridency that has been the hallmark of Hinduism and has given it the resilience that it has shown through its long history.

The book documents carefully how Hinduism has been home to a whole range of diverse schools of thought - including some agnostic traditions.

In this age of national hubris, wanton violation of basic human rights and religious narrow-mindedness, the message of the book should be of value well beyond India.

Make no mistake. The Argumentative Indian is not the kind of work that can earn anybody the Nobel Prize.

Its scientific content is too slim for that. Viewed as history it breaks little new ground and does not surprise us with any new archival discovery.

Seminal work

Fundamentalism hurts Hinduism, Sen argues

Amartya Sen's early work, for which he won the Nobel Prize, was on welfare economics and the logic of preferences.

That work, founded in formal mathematical methods and beautiful chains of deductive reasoning, took the form of using axioms to prove theorems on how we may aggregate individual preferences into collective choices.

What is remarkable about this new book is that it breaks away so effortlessly from that past. And in terms of practical importance for the world this may well be the most significant book of his.

One important question that arises from this book is the following:

When a country is under foreign domination, nationalism is a strengthening and unifying force. But a stage arrives when it might well have a narrowing influence Jawaharlal Nehru

If racism, religious intolerance, and sexism are wrong, can nationalism and patriotism, which are so often upheld as noble, be right?

An implication (he never says this explicitly) of Sen's argument is that, even though in contemporary society nationalism plays an important role, we should view this as interim and strive towards its ultimate banishment.

Nehru and nationalism

Reading Nehru's collected works, I discovered that Nehru was categorical on this.

For a prime minister to openly vent his unease about nationalism is an act of extraordinary courage.

I quote here from a letter he wrote to the Indian chief ministers on 20 September, 1953:

"When a country is under foreign domination, nationalism is a strengthening and unifying force. But a stage arrives when it might well have a narrowing influence.

Should India and others strive for a nuclear-free world?

"Sometimes, as in Europe, it becomes aggressive and chauvinistic and wants to impose itself on other countries and other people. Every people suffers from the strange delusion that they are the elect and better than all others.

"When they become strong and powerful, they try to impose themselves and their ways on others. In their attempt to do so, sometime or other, they overreach themselves, stumble and fall."

The philosophical subtext of this letter and much else of what Nehru wrote has a lot in common with Amartya Sen's new book.

It is not as though I find myself in agreement with all of Sen's arguments. He takes India to task for developing the nuclear bomb.

There is no doubt that the bomb has plenty of negative fall-outs and causes instabilities in the region.

But one has to keep in mind the stance of the existing nuclear nations that, having got there, they will

• not allow anybody else to clamber up; and, more insidiously
• refuse to ever give up nuclear weapons themselves.

I am not naively expecting nuclear nations to give up their weapons overnight but believe that they must declare a plan to do so in the future if they wish others not to develop the weapon.

Dividing the world into haves and have-nots and insisting that it will be kept that way forever is simply not sustainable. This is what gives an impetus and even a sense of right to not just India but all poorer nations to challenge the status quo.

That right will be lost the day the nuclear nations declare their aim to have a nuclear-free world.

Now that India is a nuclear nation it has a responsibility to strive towards such a future.

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Here is a selection of your comments on this article.

Juxtaposing Nehru's thoughts with Sen's ideas was a beautiful move. I hope people reading this article and Sen's book realize just how dangerous nationalism can become to the health of a nation that would like to pride itself on tolerance.
Ruth David, New York, US

Prof. Basu, I think your approach is very pessimistic. I will give an analogy of stages of life, when you are a little kid you aspire and dream, when you come to youth, you are able to do things and realize those dreams, when you become more mature, you become more responsible, and when you grow old and senile, you become worthless and fall down. If i go by your logic of not imposing yourself, when you are more powerful or you are in youth stage, then my life is worthless, i should give up immediately and just simply fear of the old age and don't do anything in the present as we all know "In the end, nothing really matters". Or there are two ways of looking at any given situation, spiritualistic view and materialistic view. Even if you read gita and hear krishna you will understand, even if you know things are gonna fall down in the end, that stage will definitely come, but you have to do your work.
Abhishek Girotra, chandler, USA

Nehru/Sen's ideas are very good to listen but not practical. This has ruined India.Without love for country, nation can not strive.
Nikus, Bangalore,India

Socialistic theory if implemented in earnest spirit could produce some very positive results. Take the case of present day Venezuela for example. Some people tend to interpret the recent surge in capitalism driven growth in India as a measure of success. They should re-assess the scenario from the viewpoint of the majority of the Indian population, who are yet to see any tangible benefits from this growth. Though being in the nuclear club sometimes helps India in getting its views across in an international forum, the lack of a strong social infrastructure, 55 years after independence, makes us a laughing stock most of the time.
Preetam, Chicago, USA

Indians are argumentative, and Dr. Sen has this part right. However, the liberals concoct a tolerant tradition for Hinduism when it suits them and condemn it as superstition and dogma when it does not. The conservatives on the other hand deem everything Hindu as glorious and ancient, but for the perversions of the foreigners and their negative influences on the traditional. Neither seems to have hit upon the current reality in India. We wear Levi's but worship Saraswathi. We manifest the temper of Shiva, yet we are capable of the benevolence of Vishnu. We are a nuclear power, but we believe in disarmament. We are like everyone else on this planet - flawed but beautiful - merely human!
Raguraman Ventachalapathi Modaliyar, Pittsburg & San Francisco, USA

There is nothing wrong in one loving his race or religion,nation or country so long as it is based on tolerance and love and on mutual respect. That is the only way to have unity in diversity in this emerging multi-polar world. There is no purpose in speaking of one's race, religion or nation so long as it suits achieving a goal and after achieving that goal, sermonising others about the 'narrowness' of these objectives!
Palendira.S, Sydney,Australia

Nehru did the country a great service by leading it to independence. His lasting legacy will be the IIT's (these world class technology institutions far superior to ANY western technology institutes!) and his focus on education and industrialisation. His quote on opening the Kharagput IIT was "..representing India's urges,India's future in the making.." How right his vision was !
hari patel, london

Once expending enormous amount of tax-payer's money on nuclear bomb was naively justified (by a friend) by considering Ram, a rickshaw-puller on Luckhnow streets earning hundred rupees a day which used to be the same that he made even before India spent billions on bomb! A general counter-argument to such observation was that the billions spent on bomb if would have been put on increasing commoner's access to drinking water and education would have saved Ram's next generation getting rid of curses such as inhuman living under well below poverty line and economic slavery after almost sixty years of political independence. Nationalism and patriotism have been facing a realistic challenge today -I would say they are in need of re-characterization with banishment of racism, religious intolerance and sexism by all means to improve the quality of living of millions of poor people. Basu and Sen are just precise in their respective views.
Syed Rahat Zaman, Phoenix, Arizona

Argumentative - Is it Rightious indignent attitude? I have seen many Indians having this problem when they are new on a foreign land and arguing whatever they say is right. Yes they lack basic commonsense while arguing a case sometimes. Well Gandhi's non-violence movement and Nehru's nationalism helped to achieve India's independence but it should have been stopped when the goal is achieved. Nehru got carried away by his principals and lacked decision making while other countries where attacking India and running to UN. Hope things change.
Hari, St.Louis, USA

The most argumentative of all Indians was Shankaracharya who without any state support single handedly drove out dominent Buddhism and restored the Vedant(Hindu)religion by shere force of erguementthroughout the length and the breadth of the country. But he does not find mention even once in Sen's book. He eulogises Akabar for his tolarence. But this was only after establishing his hegemony. The one who resisted was Rana Pratap who suffered privation for the sake of self respect but Akabar showed him no tolarance and Sen does not remember him. Sen considers Bangla Desh safer than India after PokharanII. But does he think so after series of bomb blasts by Muslim fundamentalist organisation? Indian culture may be diverse but to deny that Hinduism is the main stream of that culture is to deliberately undermine Hinduism. Sen traces the roots of indian democracy to the traditions of discussion. this seems to be far fetched and in any case rational discussion has little place in India's democratic politics as seen during the elections and in the proceedings of Parliament and State essemblies And as regards secularism it also stands sacrificed at the altar of preponderance of caste and religion in indian politics.
Padmakar Dubhashi, Pune,India

Kaushik Basu supports a Marxist-centric view of India, which has driven the country nose-down into poverty. Amartya Sen supports this view and so did Jawaharlal Nehru, the very source of a Stalinist approach to the Indian economy, turning India into renowned beggar of the world. Of course, we are all aware that Marxists know no nationalism. Theirs is a universal Ummah, or brotherhood, helping turn populations into lethargic drones, one country at a time.
Krishna Kumar, Toronto, Canada

Amartya Sen's comments are very, very true. Nationalism was indeed a tool to achieve India's independence. But the reason for achieving independence is not to create India, but an independent India. It will be a big step towards the individual's, the common man's independence. Today in India nationalism, the very tool which brought the nation's independence, is hampering the common man's freedom, by drawing him closer to narrow feelings, by trying to create a single religion, single language nation due to intolerance.
Catinat Velmourougan, Bangalore, India

An excellent point made by Dr Kaushik Basu in regard to India having nuclear bomb. I feel India has the nuclear bomb neither because it wants to show its technical prowess nor because it wants to use it in case there is a war with neighboring nations; India is forced to have the nuclear bomb because only then can its arguments be heard at any international forum to make this world free of WMD. We already showed to the world that we are committed to peace by a self imposed moratorium on using a nuclear weapons first.
Sampath Dechu, San Jose , USA

I always find Sen's writing inspiring, illuminating and refreshing. He reminds us that Hinduism began as not an 'ism' or a religion but a way of life that existed across the river 'Sindhu' or present day Indus. Thanks to Mr. Kaushik Basu for his thoughts on the book!
Parul Tyagi, Kent

Being an Indian and hence argumentative, one cannot agree with all of what Amartya Sen states. However his works are of profound significance in our troubled times. Even when we do not agree with him we need to think deep and hard about what he says. Inspite of colossal problems, poverty, strife and a turbulent history India has played home to a vast array of humanitarian traditions and egalitarian beliefs. At a time when we have doubts about the direction in which we are headed as a nation and a people - Amartya's views are food for thought
Rajiv, Tokyo

Both Sen and Nehru are/were very misguided. While it is noble to say that the strong should not impose themselves on others, history has shown that the strong always prevail. It was Nehru's weakness that is at the root cause of the Kashmir problem. If he hadn't run to the UN in 1948, and repelled the invasion immediately, we would not have the tragedy of Kashmir. As for Sen denying India nuclear weapons, this is also a folly. With nuclear China hand-in-glove with Pakistan, India had no choice but to go nuclear.
Vijay Math, London, UK

It's not very surprising that Prof.Basu gives a favorable review of Prof.Sen's new book considering that Prof.Sen was Prof.Basu's thesis advisor! I don't know how objective this review is, given this fact.
Ajay, Urbana, USA & Bangalore, India

It sure echoes Nehru, the man who fathered a family that impoverished India for over 4 decades.
Sanjay Rubinstein, NYC

I feel we Indians are really argumentative, but sometimes we tend not to use the basic commonsense while arguing a case. Lately Indians are rediscovering Nehru and Gandhi, whom we forgot since last 40 years. After a long time I am reading something positive about Nehru. I hope young Indians of my generation realise the sacrifice and contribution of Nehru and Gandhi to modern India.
Prasad, Edinburgh, UK

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