The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity

by Amartya Sen

J. Robert Oppenheimer, the leader of the American team that developed the ultimate ‘weapon of mass destruction’ during the Second World War, was moved to quote Krishna’s words (‘I am become death, the destroyer of worlds’) as he watched, on 16 July 1945, the awesome force of the first nuclear explosion devised by man.6

But there is no hope of immortality by wealth.’ Maitreyī remarks: ‘What should I do with that by which I do not become immortal?’10

For example, when, in the Mahābhārata, Bhrigu tells Bharadvāja that caste divisions relate to differences in physical attributes of different human beings, reflected in skin colour, Bharadvāja responds not only by pointing to the considerable variations in skin colour within every caste (‘if different colours indicate different castes, then all castes are mixed castes’), but also by the more profound question: ‘We all seem to be affected by desire, anger, fear, sorrow, worry, hunger, and labour; how do we have caste differences then?’13

King Alexander, every man can possess only so much of the earth’s surface as this we are standing on. You are but human like the rest of us, save that you are always busy and up to no good, travelling so many miles from your home, a nuisance to yourself and to others!… You will soon be dead, and then you will own just as much of the earth as will suffice to bury you.*

Everyone who wanted to speak did so. It was democracy in its purest form. There may have been a hierarchy of importance among the speakers, but everyone was heard, chief and subject, warrior and medicine man, shopkeeper and farmer, landowner and laborer.… The foundation of self-government was that all men were free to voice their opinions and equal in their value as citizens.50

Like Akbar’s championing of rahi aql (the path of reason), Tagore emphasized the role of deliberation and reasoning as the foundation of a good society: Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; … Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; … Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.53

Roy explains what is really dreadful about death: Just consider how terrible the day of your death will be. Others will go on speaking, and you will not be able to argue back.

Indeed, rather than sticking to the overused expression ‘recognition’, which can stand for many different things, I will use the Sanskrit word swīkriti, in the sense of ‘acceptance’, in particular the acknowledgement that the people involved are entitled to lead their own lives.

This remains a substantial issue today, since the extremist parts of the Hindutva movement in contemporary Indian politics threaten – explicitly or by implication – precisely the swīkriti of non-Hindus, particularly Muslims.

The right to comprehensive participation in democratic politics can be the basis of social and political use of ‘voice’ – through arguments and agitations – to advance the cause of equality in different spheres of life.

Or, to consider another classical disputation: ‘Since members of all the four castes are children of God, they all belong to the same caste. All human beings have the same father, and children of the same father cannot have different castes.’6

Silence is a powerful enemy of social justice.

There is basis for some hope for the future in the lines identified by that remarkable observer of the subcontinent Octavio Paz in his book In Light of India: Of course, it is impossible to foresee the future turn of events. In politics and history, perhaps in everything, that unknown power the ancients called Fate is always at work. Without forgetting this, I must add that, in politics as well as in private life, the surest method for resolving conflicts, however slowly, is dialogue.*