The argumentative indian pdf 2shared

Discussion, he argues, is as universal as love. View all 4 comments. Jun 18, Partha rated it did not like it. Amartya Sen is a renowned Economist and a Noble Laureate, he is not much of a historian and this book stands testimony to that.

The comments on the back of the book claim a lot about this being the best account of Indian history that must be read by every Indian. I beg to disagree. I strongly feel that Dr. Sen should focus on Economics and leave history to historians. The book is supposed to be a collection of essays on Indian culture, History and Identity.

However there is a lot of repetition in a Amartya Sen is a renowned Economist and a Noble Laureate, he is not much of a historian and this book stands testimony to that. However there is a lot of repetition in all the essays and what stands stark clear is Dr.

As one reads the book , one can picturise Nehru sitting in Ahmednagar fort thinking about India, with pride while narrating her glorious past, with pity while narrating her then state prior to Independence and with determination and hope about her future. One can empathise with a great leader who was far ahead of his generation, whose thoughts are pertinent today. Nehru takes you through Indian history like a friend.

Let me leave you by telling two good things about the book. Others will go on speaking, and you will not be able to argue back. I will be more than happy to take the argument further View all 11 comments. May 26, Saadia B. CritiConscience rated it liked it. The Argumentative Indian by Amartya Sen is a book which talks about public reasoning and how it is closely linked to the roots of democracy. The book comprises of 16 essays written on various themes over a period of time and then compiled together as this book.

India, the largest democracy in the world, is being criticised for the on-going Hindutva movement which threatens the acceptance of non-Hindus, particularly Muslims. Living in harmony since centuries the current upheaval challenges the acceptance of other communities in India.

Further giving West a chance to discriminate against the developing countries on the basis of their dominant religion. Whereas the developed countries are not known by their religion but through their work, culture and ethics. Though the essays are not linked with one another, but overall help in understanding the division between religion and universal values, which are viewed differently and are categorized as per the notion of being a Western or a Non-Western country.

Feb 06, Nandakishore Mridula rated it it was ok Shelves: politics. I started this book with great hopes. Amartya Sen was about to say something about our tradition, and what he wanted to say seemed to concur exactly with what I have understood, namely: Indian culture is a varied one, and cannot be limited to the single dimension that the right wingers are currently trying to limit it to.

We have an argumentative tradition, where all facets of an issue are given equal importance, and arguments both for and against are given commensurate weightage.

Al I started this book with great hopes. All agreed! Let's forge ahead. Well, it was interesting initially, where Arjuna's dialogue with Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita and the sage Javali's criticism of Rama's actions in the epic Ramayana are presented as proof of the essential questioning nature of our culture. Also, the author explains well how ancient India was not all spirituality and there was a lot of reasoning and science - and atheist thought was at least as important as the theist stream.

Akbar and his polyglot religion of 'Din Elahi'; Tagore's humanism as opposed to Gandhi's nationalism; and the difficulty to extract an 'indigenous' Indian culture from the curious mixture that we currently have - these are all proof of what an assimilatory society we were: and trying to prune us down to one dimension will definitely diminish us.

I agree wholeheartedly with you, Dr. Couldn't you have stopped here? Because the essays in the second part of the book have very little to do with argumentation. Agreed, they are all about valid issues India is facing - but when I reached here, I suddenly had the impression of watching a movie whose second half had no connection with the first. Mind you, as standalone efforts, the essays are good. The only thing is that they don't feed into the main premise.

Also, most of the essays were rather repetitive and rambling. I guess it's a problem with all collections unless there has been a rigorous effort at editing, which does not seem to have happened here. I must say with regret that I didn't finish it - left it at three-quarters of the way through. I might pick it up at a later date, but at present, I have had my fill.

In my opinion, this book should have been named "The Rambling Indian". View 2 comments. Oct 26, Aydin Mohseni rated it really liked it Shelves: history , politics. I read this book in preparation for a coming trip to India, along with "English August", and English translations of the "Bhagavad Gita" and "Ramayana". It was, simply put, an articulate promotion for the value of the history of acceptance of heterogeny in India as part of the author's larger ideological framework and as a pointed criticism of the contemporary Hindutva movement, with beautiful threads of Indian history and culture woven in throughout.

The book got me wanting both to learn more ab I read this book in preparation for a coming trip to India, along with "English August", and English translations of the "Bhagavad Gita" and "Ramayana".

The book got me wanting both to learn more about the traditions of atheist and agnostic thought in Sanskrit literature and to get my hands of some good texts on Rabindranath Tagore, Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar, and the Indian emperor Ashoka who seemed like three possibly very interesting people.

View all 3 comments. Sep 19, Himanshu Mishra rated it it was ok Shelves: reviewed , history-politics. There is an old adage that a specialist is someone who knows more and more about less and less, until finally, he knows everything about nothing. I found this statement to apply to Mr.

Amartya Sen perfectly. Let me confess that this is the only book by Mr. Sen I have had the opportunity of reading. And I have to say - the experience was disappointing. What I had hoped to be an informative, well-researched account of Indian philosophies and schools of thought turned out to be an amateur interpret There is an old adage that a specialist is someone who knows more and more about less and less, until finally, he knows everything about nothing.

What I had hoped to be an informative, well-researched account of Indian philosophies and schools of thought turned out to be an amateur interpretation of the Indian culture as perceived by the author. Over the course of reading this book, sometimes I couldn't help but feel suffocated by his views which were rather one dimensional in more than one instance. Also, his extreme anti-right stand was much too obvious. Ever heard of 'show, don't tell' Mr. To be fair, some parts of the book were really interesting e.

But alas, the book is long, repetitive and well Sen might be an outstanding economist but he is a mediocre historian at best. Oct 08, Anshul Thakur rated it really liked it. My ending note should be written first. I made that mistake and realized that I should have done this when I started It seems, we not only fight with each other, but think of foreigners with disdain. Sen takes a rather negative viewpoint on the Indian Nuclear Programme.

While, he makes many valid arguments, like one of the reasons for the Pokhran-II was to deter Pakistan from cross border terrorism by providing an ample threat, others being an opportunity to have permanent membership in the UN Security Council etc. Chances are that the effects of this armament culminated in Kargil where Indian forces suffered huge losses because they had to climb the mountains from the front.

They could a possibility have crossed the LOC and surrounded the militants if there were no nuclear threat from Pakistan. But if we rewind a little and ask why did America make one in the first place to set off this race?

They did it because Germany was allegedly building one as I heard Richard Feynman saying that it was the reason given to him by others who asked him to join that programme. It was developed by scientists with a conviction that it will be used as a bug bear and will never be used in actual. But it was used. Second, why should the countries with Nuclear weapons champion the cause of nuclear disarmament of others countries while doing nothing about their own nuclear stockpile?

I think this counter argument was mentioned but not given much weightage by Sen Read the entire review at Aesthetic Blasphemy And do let me know what you think View 1 comment.

Aug 11, Jerry Jose rated it really liked it. In this collection of essays, Nobel winning Economist Amartya Sen celebrates the long history of argumentative tradition in Indian subcontinent, and its contemporary relevance in often neglected modern cultural discussions.

Paraphrasing Sen himself, a defeated argument that refuses to be obliterated can remain very alive; and opening of the book is a research into the mentation of univocal messages of century old epics and history, by broader argumentative wisdom.

Independent India became the first country in the non-Western world to choose a resolutely democratic constitution, though drawing heavily on what it had learned from institutional experiences in Europe and America, a great deal was drawn from its own tradition of public arguments and intellectual heterodoxy. This according to Sen has kept democracy and coexistence of different political ideologies in check, unlike many other countries where democracy has intermittently made cameo appearances.

The essay narrative is not trying to impart some sort of uniqueness in Indian history or to side-line democracy as a Western gift, but argues that the it becomes easier to impart and preserve democratic principles where traditions of public discussions exists, West and East alike. The epistemological departure from orthodoxy via cosmopolitan nature of societies, provided a catholicity of approach in cultivation of observational science, allowing an interactive openness to Indian work involving both give and take, Sen argues.

Though Indian texts majorly involve elaborate religious expositions, there are protracted defences in agnostic or atheistic writings as well. The statistical argument of seeing India as a preeminent Hindu country colonial narrative , according to author is a conceptual confusion, for our religion is not our only identity, nor necessarily the identity to which we attach the greatest importance.

History of India, like every other part of world, does contain nightmarish elements, but it also involves people of dissimilar convictions coexisting peacefully in creative activities of literature, music, painting, jurisprudence etc. Amartya Sen illustrates the argumentative tradition in modern day using Gandhi and Tagore , who had a relationship of great respect for each other while sharing completely contradicting viewpoints towards nationalism, education, economy and many more.

Greater chunk is the romantic narrative of first category, whose major focus is on the wondrous and strange aspects of the country. The essay that follows India and the Bomb discusses geopolitics of India and its relationship between China and Pakistan in relation with existing Nuclear Policy.

There is often a dialectic of conferring identity by contrast, which though ideally should not, may sometime have a dampening effect on assimilation of values elsewhere than its area of confinement.

Sen tries to break this culture specific aspect using historic examples from Asia and Africa. Also the essays in this compilation seem to have been formed over different time, occasions and narrative intentions, thus making some core substances slightly repetitive.

I would like to enhance the opening quote of this review with another stolen one as an end note, one undisputed this time, by 19th century Bengali reformist Ram Mohan Roy. Dec 14, Siddharth Nishar rated it it was ok Shelves: non-fiction.

This book sets out to defend the secular, plural and liberal imperative against sectarian mostly Hindutva arguments based in history and specious reasoning. This is also the perfect example of the kind of book to not write. One, the content is limited to a very few arguments arrived at from various considerations but not examined from various perspectives. Examples of Ashoka and Akhbar contributing to the secular tradition, Buddhism spreading far and wide, global import and export of ideas, the This book sets out to defend the secular, plural and liberal imperative against sectarian mostly Hindutva arguments based in history and specious reasoning.

Two, there are close to no statistics supporting most arguments except the essay on the two sexes I suspect those were easier to procure. This makes the book more or less a highly subjective take on what is already a very subjective topic. The book reads like a polemical defense from well-known positions rather than a treatise that confirms those positions. Three, the treatment of the topic is superficial. Even when it comes to subjective analyses, issues aren't delved into and obvious positions are stated with no original inductions or deductions.

A few examples are repeated frequently. People have been quoted repeatedly for stating the same position, as if endorsements from historical figures confirm anything. Given that the average reader supports secularism and plurality, the book preaches to the choir without offering a finer understanding that can help in any incremental way.

Four, the book is perpetually in a state of preparation. Painful amounts of paper describe the biography, environment and reception of the arguments discussed rather than the actual meat of the arguments. It is as if the book works on a higher level of abstraction by mistake.

Five, the book almost restarts with every essay. A collection of essays can work but this one just didn't. There is a desperate need to condense the overlapping essays into unique chapters.

I suspect that the book could be 70 pages in length without sacrificing on a single idea. Finally, the repetition, run-on sentences and roundabout descriptive tours are obscene if not excruciating. The book commits most of the Orwellian sins.

To be fair, I did enjoy the essay on the two sexes which is perhaps less noteworthy due to the sheer amount of literature on it anyway as well as the exposition on Tagore that highlighted uncommonly-known opinions. Also, the cover is beautiful! Do not waste you precious reading time on this book. Read any random article on the need for secular tolerance instead. That the text is proffered in nugget-sized chunklets is not the only siren song of social networking systems—there is an ever-present promise of interactivity.

It deftly skirts the dead-text problem—with which decades of academic textbook assignments conspired to taint the word "non-fiction"—of the incessant droning from a distant, monolithic, voice of tedium that makes sure the reader has just enough information about the subject not to question the shallowness of the information conveyed.

Otherwise, the internet is simply one big exercise in dilettantism—a lot about a little, but not enough even for ipse se nihil scire id unum sciat. And it is precisely this non-deprecatory superficiality that is the power of the internet; the ability to flutter from one topic to another and link seemingly disparate concepts into a—forgive the anachronism— web of tangled and tenebrous thoughts is the quintessentially human organizational schema: patterns in the stars; meaning from chaos; signals in the noise.

Sometimes the links just happen, even in curated-narrative nonfiction. It is in the depths of these thick tomes that you truly feel the divine hand of serendipity as opposed to the tepid coincidence of two articles citing the same source. It makes you learn something; more than that, it makes you remember long past closing the final page.

When discussing the cultural drift of Buddhism, The Argumentative Indian referenced something that tripped my kismet alarm: One of the positive contributions Buddhist connections produced in China is the general sense that even the Chinese must, to some extent, look outwards. Indeed, not only did Buddhism suggest that there were sources of wisdom well outside China, but it also led to the tendency of many Chinese intellectuals to go abroad, in particular to India, in search of enlightenment and understanding.

Furthermore, since these visitors to India came back with tales of wonderful things they had seen in India, it was difficult to take an entirely Sino-centric view of world civilization. There were also other admirable sites and achievements they could see on the way to India. For example, Xuanzang in the seventh century marvelled at the gigantic Bamiyan statues of the Buddha in Afghanistan, which he saw as he approached India from the West on the circuitous route he had taken via Khotan.

Gigantic Bamiyan statues that were marvelous enough to make the cut for a millennia-old travelogue? Surely those would be worth visiting. And yet, the hunt for lapis lazuli in Color: A Natural History of the Palette —a mere two books prior in my library queue—brought me face-to-face with cruel truth of the Bamiyan Buddhas: And I wondered then, as I sat on the head of the great Buddha of Bamiyan, whether it was in that valley far below us that somebody once, fourteen centuries ago, had sat experimenting with blue powder and brown glue, and had discovered—by adding wood ash perhaps—how to make lapis lazuli into paint.

Those Buddhas and frescos were destroyed eleven months later. The Taliban used rockets for two days of bombardment, and allowed their photography rule to be broken, sending out images of bare arches where once there had been two guardians of a forgotten faith. In their week of fame and destruction the statues were seen and discussed by people all round the world: people who had never heard of the Buddhas of Bamiyan were shocked that now they would be unable to see them for themselves.

On most levels it was a terrible cultural tragedy. But on one level it was not. Buddhism is a faith that understands impermanence. When else in their long history could these two vast and armless trunks of stone standing in the desert have reminded so many people in so many countries that nothing lasts forever. But the post facto knowledge of their seventh century citation by Chinese tourist Xuanzang—not the mention the coincidence of two references from wildly divergent books—made the whole sequence a bit surreal.

I feel as though I now lay some sort of personal claim on the Bamiyan statues. Jumping from link to link and page to page on the internet inures one somewhat to the majesty of the cross-referential existence of a connected universe; convergence in details buried deep within page books is the type of thing that might goad a reader into seeking out their next book based on a desire to learn more about those star-crossed statues. It prompted the revelation that I knew almost nothing about India.

There is a difference between a constitutionally secular nation with a majority Hindu population and a theocratic Hindu state that might see Hinduism as its official religion Nepal comes closer to the latter description than does India. It is facts like these that poke giant holes in the elementary worldview pressed upon students from general, wide-angle lectures and the dreaded uniform curriculum textbook. When British India was partitioned, Pakistan chose to be an Islamic Republic, whereas India chose a secular constitution.

Is that distinction significant? Conversations about Indian democracy, if taught at all, are " attribute[d] to British influence despite the fact that such an influence should have worked similarly for a hundred other countries that emerged from an empire on which the sun used not to set. It in these deeper dives that really draw me into narrative nonfiction—there is always something new right around the corner.

You see the same things, referenced again and again; compilation books are not only repetitive—how much text is wasted skimming the surface of the Gujurat Massacre ten separate times, rather than hitting it once with depth and vigor—but the tone is so disparate there is next to no authorial voice to guide you through the narrative.

Any sense of uniqueness or cohesion on the part of an author is pressed flat by the need to match the format in which the text originally appeared; New York Review of Books; New Republic; Financial Times; et al. Each chapter is stand-alone; you will undoubtedly pull the fantastic knowledge from the trove, but the cost is high: The movement east of Indian trigonometry to China was part of a global exchange of ideas that also went west around that time.

Indeed, this was also about the time when Indian trigonometry was having a major impact on the Arab world, which would later influence European mathematics as well, through the Arabs. Some verbal signposts to the global movement of ideas can be readily traced. It requires from the reader a dedication to break through the same thematic openings and approach the same revelatory summits each time; it is sitting down with an album of remixes—you have to be really into the song to even recognize, let alone appreciate, the subtle differences.

There is no kismet when the same sources, examples, and events are used the same way by the same author in a dozen unconnected essays. I will not buy glass for the price of diamonds, and I will never allow patriotism to triumph over humanity as long as I live. Amartya Sen can. Prolixity may not be alien to us in India, but brevity definitely seems to be an alien concept to Mr. But this book is not a coherent one, if you are keen on learning the history of India, its culture and identity, as the subtitle misleads you to be.

All that the author ever tries to do is to prove that India is not as great as it is thought to be by Hindu Nationalists and it is not as worse as it was portrayed to be by Western racists — like James Mill and Winston Churchill. In this superb collection of essays, Sen smashes quite a few stereotypes and places the idea of India and Indianness in its rightful, deserved context. There is a fascinating study of Indian calendars.

This Tagore was not whom I read about in my history books. Four, the book is perpetually in a state of argymentative. Towards the end, the discourse veers towards, what else, mortality.

The paradox here is that this misrepresentation has now also been taken over by authoritarian rulers throughout Asia, as a justification for their own lack of respect for individual freedoms. There is a desperate need to condense the overlapping essays into unique chapters. Identity is a plural concept and one must not run away from the matter of making choices argumentxtive allocating priorities.

Search for:. Sen sees the matter in a different way. He views the issue not from superficial plane but from the hidden plane. In reality most of the kings ruled their respective monarchy keeping an eye to the public likes and dislikes. Vedas describe democracy 18 It was an ideal democracy free from the vices of the democracy of the present time. This is because at present inefficient and corrupt persons having no kingly qualities become rulers.

In another instance, king Rama was described taking suggestion from the Praza known as citizens in modern time and disagree, if he was not right. There were Slokas that describe democracy in India. During BC — AD there was urbanization almost similar to republican system. According to Brahminical literature republican system was found in all over in ancient India.

There were ganas and Sanghas playing important role in decision making process in a kingdom. These were the groups that would take essential part in running a government. These groups have their own political influences and worked almost like sovereign government body in the kingdom. The concept was inherited from the practices of great Indian Monarchs of distant past. The monarchs ruled their respective kingdoms by the help of a handful of talented persons who collected public opinion on crucial matters through public debates.

Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. Besides there are millions of people practicing Christianity and Islam. The second largest populace of the world have been practicing almost all the religions of the world since time immemorial.

But, India does not have any record of any Crusade. In India there has been no bloodshed in the name of Religion. This, according to Dr. Sen is the result of extreme Radical and Tolerant aspects of Hinduism. The Hindus believe in religious freedom and practices religious tolerance. Hindus know Religion is personal. Nobody should be compelled to adopt a Religion which he does not like.

And also because of religious tolerance and flexibility an originally Hindu habitation has become the hotspot of almost all the Religions of the world. Religious Radicalism 30 Nobody can define India and her innumerable variety and uniqueness.

Although home of four Major world Religions, Indians live in harmony and peace. It is distinguished from the majority system, in Resource collected from Public Domain Web contents.

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