Interpreting India

Amartya Sen is India’s foremost public intellectual and has for decades tried to understand and interpret the country to itself and to the outside world. He has not shied away from criticism too. Our idea of India would be poorer without Sen’s explication of it.

He has an outsider’s advantage of distant vision and an insider’s strength of detailed knowledge of what he writes about. Long years of professional life outside the country have given him the chance to look with some objectivity at the country where he grew up and to which he is still emotionally attached. Few Nobel laureates are active campaigners for public causes. Not many professors reach out beyond their classrooms and the limited circle of students and readers of specialised journals. But Sen has had an active presence in public discourse in India and has kept conversations alive at many levels, probing, questioning and explaining, in the best traditions of the argumentative Indian.

The Country of First Boys is a collection of essays written by him over a period of 15 years, from 2000. Most of them were published in The Little Magazine, and some others are based on lectures delivered on various occasions. Sen’s intellectual range has always been wide. The essays in this volume also cover politics, history, philosophy, education, literature, economics and many other areas which make up contemporary life.

An informed exposition of India’s calendrical tradition finds its place as the opening essay and it sets the tone for the essential idea that runs through all the essays that follow. The development and existence of a variety of calendars in India, ranging from the Kaliyuga calendar, the Buddhist and the Vikram Samvat calendars to the Bengali and Kollam calendars is proof for him of the pervasive pluralism of the country. It is also evidence of the astronomical and mathematical expertise which existed in the country. He also seems to agree with the common notion that there is a greater element of abstract thinking than observational science in India’s intellectual tradition.

The idea of democratic tolerance and co-existence of religions, social systems, cultures and other categories is at the heart of Sen’s conception of India. For him it is a not a woolly-headed generality accepted without questioning, but is a fact realised the most rigorous way through the study of history and society. All the themes that Sen examines in this volume have been matters of serious concerns in India’s social and economic history and will remain so in the coming decades. This is because the issues are deeply entrenched in the nature and structure of society and the solutions are slow. In fact, in many areas the problems are getting worse and the attempts to address them are moving in the direction away from a solution. Universal education is among the first requirements of development but India has not been able to provide it to its children many decades after independence.

All children should have equal opportunities to access good education. The essay ‘The Country of First Boys’ shows how the educational system favours boys from privileged backgrounds and denies the best opportunities for those from poorer backgrounds. Sen notes that “serious issues of justice arise not only when a great many people are denied the opportunity of enjoying these centrally important freedoms, but also when the facilities to develop our basic capabilities are so unequally distributed by the society and the state.”

Most of the key ideas that Sen considers important are mentioned in the sentence: freedom, justice, equality, fair distribution of assets and facilities and the roles of state and society in ensuring that these ideas become real for the people. Other essays in the volume examine issues related to media, identity, deprivation, health policies, literature etc. In all of them, his positions are marked by an advocacy for democratic openness and social commitment and an inclusive, tolerant and humane view of the world. Sen attaches the highest value to democratic dialogue which is an important tool in the fight against even famine and poverty and he is certain that the ways and means of expanding the reach of public reasoning and social responsibility beyond the concerns of the relatively affluent are crucial for the future of India.

These are not ideas derived from western philosophy and political thought. The essays on Rabindranath Tagore, the importance of Nalanda, and the value of Sanskrit and the Vedas show how rooted and well-versed Sen is in India’s intellectual traditions. The sweep of his mind, the depth of scholarship, the rigour of analysis, the ability to build a coherent world view out of disparate elements and the persuasiveness and consistency of commitment seen in the essays are remarkable. His writing is also known for its elegant simplicity. The best of Sen can be seen in this book, and it is reassuring to learn that the faculties of his mind have not diminished with age.

The Country of First Boys
Amartya Sen
Oxford University Press
2015, pp 328, Rs 350