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

by Amartya Sen

Even though more than 80 per cent of Indians may be Hindu, the country has a very large Muslim population (the third largest among all the countries in the world – larger than the entire British and French populations put together), and a great many followers of other faiths: Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Parsees and others.

‘Who really knows? Who will here proclaim it? Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation? … perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not – the one who looks down on it, in the highest heaven, only he knows – or perhaps he does not know.’

A pundit who gets considerable space in the Rāmāyaṇa, called Jāvāli, not only does not treat Rama as God, he calls his actions ‘foolish’ (‘especially for’, as Jāvāli puts it, ‘an intelligent and wise man’).

The Chinese in the first millennium CE standardly referred to India as ‘the Buddhist kingdom’

but also laid down what are perhaps the oldest rules for conducting debates and disputations,

Voice is a crucial component of the pursuit of social justice.

A defeated argument that refuses to be obliterated can remain very alive.