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The Argumentative Indian

The Argumentative Indian by Amartya Sen

Running thoughts while reading. A serious attempt to engage with Sen. Feb–Mar 2025

Why this book?

It’s been a while trying to get to an interesting Indian intellectual on the ideas side. I know there’s some politicization of his nature and his thinking, but I figured I’d get a read on him first, and then see how he holds up. I wanted economics and theories. What I got was a viewpoint on India: a bit of history, a lot of speculation, and a fair amount of moral positioning.

Running Log

21-02-2025

  • He’s a sufficiently well-read man. Pretty evident. And this was written in 2004. I get the vibes of the “scientific Indian” with this guy, and I like it. He’s pointing out the argumentative nature of humanity, and how humans actually consider spirituality in daily life, pretty rigorously.
  • He talks about the Charvaka and the atheistic tradition in Indian thought. Pretty cool. He also points out that just as India gave the world a lot of things, it took some from the Greeks and Romans too. Never forget that. There was an equal exchange, and the current Hindutva politics obscures this.

08-03-2025

  • I didn’t know that Buddhism was a major religion in India for nearly 1,500 years. This fact will stay with me for a long while. It was a defining part of the country’s intellectual and spiritual identity.
  • The Sino-Indian relationship was something I hadn’t considered deeply. The Chinese considering India as a “country of heaven,” the exchange of cultural traditions, silk, ways of making and breaking and thinking about things. Really interesting.
  • There was a chapter on three Western approaches to viewing India. I’ve made notes on these:
Three Western Approaches to India

Curatorial

  • Curious, scientific viewpoint
  • Bias against the normal aspects of Indian culture, and biased against it
  • Fairly unaware of external styles and influences, focuses only on collecting
  • Driven by curiosity and interest
  • Thinkers: Edward Said, Alberuni (“fair-al-hind”), Roberto Nobili, William Jones
  • Accused of giving respect to Urdu and British people

Magisterial

  • Imperial, colonist-attributive
  • Absolutely indifferent to history
  • Warren Hastings, James Mill, and such as The History of British India
  • Didn’t step inside the country
  • Claims Indians were influenced by European esoterics, and then claims credit
  • Fixing Macaulay’s “Mother India”

Exotic

  • Spiritual humdrumming
  • Hypes India up, then gets disappointed (1800s-1960s)
  • Looking only spiritually, India is a country-man
  • Schlegel brothers, Schopenhauer, Hegel (disappointed)
  • “Surendranath Begorra,” A Glimpse of the Domesticity of Franklyn Barnabas

14-03-2025

Essays I liked as a whole:

  • China and India
  • Indian Traditions and the Western Imagination
  • India and the Bomb
  • Women and Men, Class in India
Secularism Arguments (from 14-03-2025 notes)
  • It’s non-existent in India (as an argument), favouring Hindutva and Muslim division
  • The Favouritism Critique: still mostly popular, it hasn’t seen something against it (we Hindus were earlier, man!)
  • The Prior Identity Critique: Muslim sectarianism critique (bro, they see themselves as Indian now, it’s fine)
  • Anti-Modernist Critique (no idea what this is about)
  • Cultural Critique: mostly Hindu nation, secularism should bias for it

09-03-2025 (handwritten notes)

  • Praises Kerala for having highest education and literacy. This is because of left policies of upper-caste Nairs present there.
  • Opened eyes about the “mid-day meal” policy and how it has been beneficial not only in nutrition, but also in sending kids to school. Similar to “American Lunch policy.”
  • The points at the very interesting difference between class, caste, and communal vibes, and how it contributes to stuff.
  • I didn’t know India still lacked in the Global Hunger Index. Read a paper talking against the current metric of GHI and how it should change per country (stress causes this, overweight and also malnourished, and some points like that).

Final Thoughts

15-03-2025

The book is done. And I have a slightly better understanding of what I want to read and what I don’t.

A lot of his work feels academic in a way that doesn’t make sense outside the context of his past. It’s extremely dated, and a lot of it only the 20-year-old me would care about or be interested in. There are parts that I find absolutely boring now, but might find better later. I don’t know.

I understand his views, but can’t sympathise with them. He tries to take the moral high ground where it makes no rational sense. He’s pragmatic in his views, but in his ideas? Not so much. You see the stats that women are being held back by patriarchal families, but he expects everyone to just “think it out” and reason stuff. I know that’s the entire theme of the book, but there’s more to life than rational argumentation.

And absolutely no mention of science. Like, absolutely none. It’s crazy how much you can get away with that in an intellectual work about India.

About the Author and the Book

  • A well-thought-out and well-researched book. Makes me feel “hmmm…” while reading it.
  • It felt like a pre-cursor to “The Scientific Indian” vibes, but not as vigorous in mentioning physical principles.
  • I think both Navrilkar and Amartya Sen have a deep understanding of Sanskrit and properly work on it. It’s similar to Professor Pratosh Kumar and IISc, whom I keep seeing grow to interesting heights in both technical and Sanskritorial levels.
  • There was a lot of topics I didn’t know about, which kinda helped. I also realized that I don’t have the “academic” rigour when it comes to history.
  • It started from Our Oriental Heritage and this just pushes the same idea further.
  • I’m somewhat honest in saying that I didn’t fully understand some of Sen’s points. It felt like it had the same problems as my past writings: mostly ranting and filtered thoughts, albeit I would like to say I lack the interest or mental capacity (now) to crack it.

Individual Parts Worth Noting

  • The essay on Tagore is interesting. I never knew Tagore for the polymath he was. Absolutely mad lad.
  • His ideas on Charvaka and Buddhist scepticism are interesting. The connection between Buddhism, Jainism, China, and India is fascinating.
  • The part where he bashes Western intellectuals such as James Mill and Macaulay is awesome. It’s like proper intellectual bashing. Pretty fun.