The Argumentative Indian
"The Argumentative Indian brings together a selection of writings from Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen that outline the need to understand contemporary India, including its thriving democracy, in the light of its long argumentative tradition." "Understanding the political, social, cultural and economic challenges that contemporary India faces demands an adequate appreciation of its pluralist, interactive and dynamic heritage. Sen argues that external views also affect the national perception of identity through an interactive process, especially in the post-colonial world. The West has often perceived India as a place of endless spirituality and unreasoning mysticism. Yet it has a long tradition of scepticism and reasoning, with perhaps, of all ancient civilizations, the largest body of agnostic and atheistic literature, in addition to secular contributions in mathematics, astronomy, linguistics, medicine and political economy."--Jacket.
Stats for nerds
3recommend
6mentions
4people
2012–2021years
67% recommend33% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- English:
Do you consider having a new layer in your thinking process "life changing"? Then, I would say-
1. Deep Work and So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport. He goes against famous ideas such as "follow your passion" and provides you with alternative actionable advice.
2. Black Swan by N. Nicholas Taleb. It makes you aware of unhinged "platonistic thinking" where stuff are "explained" looking back. And people expect to use these explanations in future. I also learned about silent evidence which is, of course, a type of survivorship bias and sampling bias. Whenever, I see a straigh-forward "explanation", alarm goes off inside mind- 'this is too simplistic, and thus oversimplified, and not entirely correct'.
3. Made to Stick by Cheap Heath and Dan Heath: this book explains why some ideas stick and why some don't. From this book, you also learn how to make ideas stick. You start to see the world in a different way.
4. Godel, Escher, Bach: others have already mentioned it. It is life changing. I am still reading it.
5. Argumentative Indian by Amartya Sen: Indian past is generally seen as a golden age heavily tied to religion and faith. Sen, in an articulated, smooth, and scholarly way provides evidence in contrary. The past of India is also an age of reason, athiesm, debate, faithlessness, unorthodoxy, and opposing of religions. Sanskrit is the first language to have athiestic text, maybe.
Bengali:
I used to feel very bad about my ethnic identity, and felt ashamed about it. (I was 14/15.)
Then I read the book "Those Times" by Sunil Ganguly. It is a novel based on history and historical figures, the Bengali renaissance, the feminist movements of Bengal.
This was the first time I ever felt confident about my ethnic identity, and fount a history I could take pride in. Totally changed me. It was like finally having soil under my feet for the first time in my life.
Bouddha Dharma by Haraprasad Shastri: This is a history of Buddhism in Bengal region.
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These are just some of many. I am in my early 20s and I have read 250 books till now, and all read in recent years were carefully chosen. Many had meaningful impact in my life.
- For those who don't know Amartya Sen is also a Nobel Laureate in the field of Economics.
He is one of the finest intellectuals and thinkers of our time.
I recently read one of his books- The Argumentative Indian. It is among the best non-fiction that I have ever read.
- The Argumentative Indian by Amartya Sen. Superbly written treatise.
- When I was in India, I found it interesting that the Indian concept of Freedom of Religion (which they've had off and on for much much longer than the US) is actually equality of religion in the eyes of the state rather than separation of church and state. So, different religions have different laws that apply to them. That's a very alien concept to Americans.
Even Britain doesn't have a guarantee of freedom of speech like the US, particularly when it comes to hate speech.
The American lens is a foggy one, even excluding the fact that the rights we guarantee our citizens aren't necessarily the rights we grant citizens of other nations. It's a good thing to keep in mind.
But yes, India DOES promote the idea of freedom of expression and it's been a fundamental part of its culture for much longer than the United States has existed. Nobel prize winning economist Amartya Sen has a great book on the history of dissent in Indian history and how it's a cornerstone of India's culture and democracy: http://www.amazon.com/Argumentative-Indian-Writings-History-...
- Nobel laureate Amartya Sen outlines in his book 'The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity', what the incumbent party did in its previous stint i.e. when ruling India during 1998-2004:
... What is its specific relevance in contemporary Indian politics, and why is Hindutva politics so keen on redescribing the past? I would argue that the answer lies in two specific features of contemporary Hindu politics
... The first is the need for the Hindutva movement to keep together its diverse components and to generate fresh loyalty from potential recruits... The second reason for focusing on India's past is the large support for the Hindutva movement that comes from the Indian diaspora abroad, particularly in North America and Europe, for whom it is quite important to be able to retain their general Indian nationalist attachment while embracing any other loyalty they may be persuaded to have (such as Hindutva)
... The rapidly reorganized National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) became busy, from shortly after the BJP's assumption of office, not only in producing fresh textbooks for Indian school children, but also in deleting sections from books produced earlier by NCERT itself ( under pre-BJP management), written by reputed Indian historians. The 'reorganization' of NCERT was accompanied by an 'overhaul' of the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR), with new officers being appointed and a new agenda chosen for both, mainly in line with the priorities of the Hindutva movement
... School children were to be taught, in one of the textbooks, that Madagascar was 'an island in the Arabian sea' and that Lancashire had been 'a fast-growing industrial town' . The newly devised history of India in the new textbooks prepared by the Government of India received sharp criticism in the media and in public discussions that followed. The reviews in the major newspapers were almost uniformly disparaging. 'Bloomers Galore in the NCERT Texts', was the news headline in the Hindusthan Times
... one of the textbooks that was meant to teach Indian school children about the events surrounding India's independence failed to mention the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by Nathuram Godse, the Hindu political fanatic who had links with the activist RSS (the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh) - an omission of very considerable moment
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10310.The_Argumentative_...
- >> to fix the education system that has been messed by the previous administration.
To be sure, 'administrations' would be better word, given what the current ruling party did to school text-books, in its earlier regime during 1998-2004. See this snippet from 'Argumentative Indian' by Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen:
https://books.google.co.in/books?id=gcGiwyBS3YwC&lpg=PT29&vq...
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