The Argumentative Indian
I always wondered why I would invariably get into arguments. Not just get into one but also invite an argument, revel in it, relish the feel of the rushing adrenaline regardless of the outcome. In fact some wondered aloud of my sanity when I wrote in my profile, ‘debates and arguments’ as one of my interests!
Now, I know why. The reasons for my loquaciousness, my rumbling rambles and ‘have-to-have-an-opinion’ were clear as day light as I started reading, ‘the Argumentative Indian’ by Amartya Sen.
And, what shine brighter than daylight in the book is the intellect, reason and insight of the author. A person who could argue while he was at High School that Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita got away with an incomplete and unconvincing argument surely must be something more than a genius! An economics professor making structured, erudite and logical arguments about the history of India and its dialogic traditions is a rarity. But what’s rarer is the compassion with which the entire book is written without either going bombastic (about achievements) or apologetic (over failures) and nowhere losing track of being forthright and simple, gently firmly and consistently telling us to preserve the tradition of heterodoxy the country has always exhibited over the past several millennia. The review by Bibek Debroy says, “Every Indian should read this book”. I (as humbly as my ego would permit) second that!
Before I go any further, I must confess that I am no authority on Indian history nor can I hold a candle to the intellect of Dr. Sen. Still I have a few arguments of my own against some of the statements that the author makes in, ‘The Argumentative Indian’. As an erstwhile student but yet a keen follower of history and as an interested citizen and voter of the polity and lastly as Dr. Sen himself says, since every person has the right to present his argument, I make mine. And, my arguments are just based on what I have read in the first section of the book consisting of three essays.
The first statement of Dr. Sen that I disagree with and hence argue against is, “Buddhism … … was the dominant religion of India for nearly a thousand years”. I have an argument against the deductions of Dr. Sen about his assertions on the reasons for the defeat of BJP in the last general elections. Dr. Sen states that the BJP lost its elections largely (or primarily) because of the Gujarat riots of 2002.
On Buddhism as the Dominant Religion of India
My understanding is, while Buddhism was largely present in India and received royal patronage, it never grew to become the dominant religion. While benevolent Kings like Asoka, Kanishka and Harsha tried to propagate it, the religion didn’t take great roots (unlike even Jainism). The reasons? I’ll enlist them as under:
a) The Chinese scholars called India ‘the Buddhist Kingdom’ because of the origin of the Buddha and Buddhism in this country. Also the scholars spent a large amount of their time in the Buddhist Universities of Nalanda, Taxila and Amaravati that would’ve influenced their understanding of the country.
b) The agnostic tradition of Buddhism was anathema to the general population (that Buddhism itself adopted the rituals of Hinduism and other religions over time is testimony to this)
c) The initial enthusiasm and euphoria of a religion without rituals and discrimination ensured mass following but then it declined rather rapidly
d) The number of Buddhist patron kings was rather restricted. Every Buddhist dynasty/kingdom was followed by a staunch Hindu dynasty that tried its best to revive the prospects of the Vedic religion (E.g., Sunga dynasty after the Mauryas)
e) The peninsular India had rather remained insular to the influence of Buddhism (though Jainism did take root) except in parts of Andhra Pradesh during the rule of Satavahanas.
On the Electoral Rout of BJP
Indian voter votes more because of caste, local issues than national issues. Attempts to make the voter more intelligent than he is or trying to oversimplify the complexity of an Indian election would not be fruitful. It is amazing that Dr. Sen attempts it!
If riots were the cause for electoral defeat, then the BJP wouldn’t have come to power in the first place. If public memory was any longer than it is (that includes you and I) the BJP wouldn’t have grown from strength to strength and then lost power. Dr. Sen tends to believe the ‘Leftist’ argument that the electorate ‘punished’ the allies of the BJP in the NDA because of their tag with the saffron brigade. That again doesn’t seem to be true.
BJP lost elections because its election campaign largely was not understood by the voting masses. The slogan of ‘India Shining’ was neither popular nor explained in the rural areas. They couldn’t relate to it. Building of roads or opening up of economy or sale of PSUs didn’t seem to make sense to the rural voters. It is also a fact that the large support base that the BJP enjoys among the educated, middle-class Hindu households didn’t vote during the elections and preferred to stay away and have a good holiday. It’s possible that these ‘supporters’ had ‘assumed’ that the votes of the rest of the junta would suffice to bring back the BJP to power.
Also, the BJP’s last-minute ditching of the DMK in favour of Jayalalitha proved expensive. Had BJP continued with its alliance with the DMK, the NDA tally would’ve risen by 35 seats! And, Telugu Desam lost in AP because of the ‘supposedly anti-farmer’ stance of Chandrababu Naidu. It was a rout. Shiv Sena’s hold in Maharashtra has been on the wane (proved through several elections in the state). Mamta Banerjee’s reputation of a ‘screamer’ had completely been established. Also, Trinamul Congress’s hold in Bengal was at an all-time low with Mamtadi’s antics and tantrums reaching a new crescendo. The alliances in some Northern States too went kaput. All these were the causes for the loss of power of BJP (the results stunned everyone including the Congress and its allies; none in the country had expected these results).
(At least in the first section of the book) Dr Sen doesn’t talk about the extremist elements of the other religions in India. The criticism is limited to the Hindutva brigade. True, the militant Hindutva elements deserve the strident criticism of Dr. Sen but what about the extremist elements from other religions and their influence in the rise of militant Hindu sections? I firmly believe that the fear psychosis that a large section of the Hindu population suffers from is baseless. Again, if the Hindu religion is on a decline it is largely because of its own internal reasons and no reasons lie elsewhere outside and the heinous campaigns of Bajrang Dal and the VHP against other religions need to be universally condemned as also its efforts to look at Indian history and culture from a narrow prism, as Dr. Sen asserts. But at the same time, one cannot be silent about the twisting of facts being done by others too!
My diatribe aside, Dr. Sen has ignited (should I say, reignited) a fire in me to read and learn more about our own country. The number of references he has used to write his essays made me realize my own inadequacies (and feel ashamed). So, I have resolved that within my tenure in Bhutan I would at least read 100 works. And at least 25 books would be non-fiction and related to issues that affect the world in general and India in particular.
Amartya Sen’s book consisting of 16 essays is divided into four parts. I would write further on the impact of the other essays contained in the book. I also recommend (and beseech) to all those who come across this entry on my blog to pick up the book and read. Let the minds wake up to a new light.
Now, I know why. The reasons for my loquaciousness, my rumbling rambles and ‘have-to-have-an-opinion’ were clear as day light as I started reading, ‘the Argumentative Indian’ by Amartya Sen.
And, what shine brighter than daylight in the book is the intellect, reason and insight of the author. A person who could argue while he was at High School that Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita got away with an incomplete and unconvincing argument surely must be something more than a genius! An economics professor making structured, erudite and logical arguments about the history of India and its dialogic traditions is a rarity. But what’s rarer is the compassion with which the entire book is written without either going bombastic (about achievements) or apologetic (over failures) and nowhere losing track of being forthright and simple, gently firmly and consistently telling us to preserve the tradition of heterodoxy the country has always exhibited over the past several millennia. The review by Bibek Debroy says, “Every Indian should read this book”. I (as humbly as my ego would permit) second that!
Before I go any further, I must confess that I am no authority on Indian history nor can I hold a candle to the intellect of Dr. Sen. Still I have a few arguments of my own against some of the statements that the author makes in, ‘The Argumentative Indian’. As an erstwhile student but yet a keen follower of history and as an interested citizen and voter of the polity and lastly as Dr. Sen himself says, since every person has the right to present his argument, I make mine. And, my arguments are just based on what I have read in the first section of the book consisting of three essays.
The first statement of Dr. Sen that I disagree with and hence argue against is, “Buddhism … … was the dominant religion of India for nearly a thousand years”. I have an argument against the deductions of Dr. Sen about his assertions on the reasons for the defeat of BJP in the last general elections. Dr. Sen states that the BJP lost its elections largely (or primarily) because of the Gujarat riots of 2002.
On Buddhism as the Dominant Religion of India
My understanding is, while Buddhism was largely present in India and received royal patronage, it never grew to become the dominant religion. While benevolent Kings like Asoka, Kanishka and Harsha tried to propagate it, the religion didn’t take great roots (unlike even Jainism). The reasons? I’ll enlist them as under:
a) The Chinese scholars called India ‘the Buddhist Kingdom’ because of the origin of the Buddha and Buddhism in this country. Also the scholars spent a large amount of their time in the Buddhist Universities of Nalanda, Taxila and Amaravati that would’ve influenced their understanding of the country.
b) The agnostic tradition of Buddhism was anathema to the general population (that Buddhism itself adopted the rituals of Hinduism and other religions over time is testimony to this)
c) The initial enthusiasm and euphoria of a religion without rituals and discrimination ensured mass following but then it declined rather rapidly
d) The number of Buddhist patron kings was rather restricted. Every Buddhist dynasty/kingdom was followed by a staunch Hindu dynasty that tried its best to revive the prospects of the Vedic religion (E.g., Sunga dynasty after the Mauryas)
e) The peninsular India had rather remained insular to the influence of Buddhism (though Jainism did take root) except in parts of Andhra Pradesh during the rule of Satavahanas.
On the Electoral Rout of BJP
Indian voter votes more because of caste, local issues than national issues. Attempts to make the voter more intelligent than he is or trying to oversimplify the complexity of an Indian election would not be fruitful. It is amazing that Dr. Sen attempts it!
If riots were the cause for electoral defeat, then the BJP wouldn’t have come to power in the first place. If public memory was any longer than it is (that includes you and I) the BJP wouldn’t have grown from strength to strength and then lost power. Dr. Sen tends to believe the ‘Leftist’ argument that the electorate ‘punished’ the allies of the BJP in the NDA because of their tag with the saffron brigade. That again doesn’t seem to be true.
BJP lost elections because its election campaign largely was not understood by the voting masses. The slogan of ‘India Shining’ was neither popular nor explained in the rural areas. They couldn’t relate to it. Building of roads or opening up of economy or sale of PSUs didn’t seem to make sense to the rural voters. It is also a fact that the large support base that the BJP enjoys among the educated, middle-class Hindu households didn’t vote during the elections and preferred to stay away and have a good holiday. It’s possible that these ‘supporters’ had ‘assumed’ that the votes of the rest of the junta would suffice to bring back the BJP to power.
Also, the BJP’s last-minute ditching of the DMK in favour of Jayalalitha proved expensive. Had BJP continued with its alliance with the DMK, the NDA tally would’ve risen by 35 seats! And, Telugu Desam lost in AP because of the ‘supposedly anti-farmer’ stance of Chandrababu Naidu. It was a rout. Shiv Sena’s hold in Maharashtra has been on the wane (proved through several elections in the state). Mamta Banerjee’s reputation of a ‘screamer’ had completely been established. Also, Trinamul Congress’s hold in Bengal was at an all-time low with Mamtadi’s antics and tantrums reaching a new crescendo. The alliances in some Northern States too went kaput. All these were the causes for the loss of power of BJP (the results stunned everyone including the Congress and its allies; none in the country had expected these results).
(At least in the first section of the book) Dr Sen doesn’t talk about the extremist elements of the other religions in India. The criticism is limited to the Hindutva brigade. True, the militant Hindutva elements deserve the strident criticism of Dr. Sen but what about the extremist elements from other religions and their influence in the rise of militant Hindu sections? I firmly believe that the fear psychosis that a large section of the Hindu population suffers from is baseless. Again, if the Hindu religion is on a decline it is largely because of its own internal reasons and no reasons lie elsewhere outside and the heinous campaigns of Bajrang Dal and the VHP against other religions need to be universally condemned as also its efforts to look at Indian history and culture from a narrow prism, as Dr. Sen asserts. But at the same time, one cannot be silent about the twisting of facts being done by others too!
My diatribe aside, Dr. Sen has ignited (should I say, reignited) a fire in me to read and learn more about our own country. The number of references he has used to write his essays made me realize my own inadequacies (and feel ashamed). So, I have resolved that within my tenure in Bhutan I would at least read 100 works. And at least 25 books would be non-fiction and related to issues that affect the world in general and India in particular.
Amartya Sen’s book consisting of 16 essays is divided into four parts. I would write further on the impact of the other essays contained in the book. I also recommend (and beseech) to all those who come across this entry on my blog to pick up the book and read. Let the minds wake up to a new light.
posted by Quintessential Critic (Sudhir Narayana) @ 9:03 AM
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