Revisiting Amartya Sen’s, “The Argumentative Indian” in an Era of Dialectical Contradiction
A reflection on the Nobel-winning economist’s collection of essays and the everlasting questions they leave us
India’s Argumentative Tradition: Along the Path of Reason?
The first volume, Voice and Heterodoxy, begins with an explanation of the title — “the Argumentative Indian” being a symbolic figure of India’s longstanding tradition of discourse and debate. Sen pridefully exclaims that India’s argumentative history long precedes her status as a postcolonial democracy.
Other conventional beliefs about such tradition are refuted. Citing scripture from the Vedas (Whence is this creation? The gods came afterwards with the creation of this universe. Who then knows whence it has arisen?) and the once dominant Cārvāka/Lokāyata philosophy of religious skepticism, Sen argues that atheistic schools of thought have occupied a forgotten yet material place in history. Queen of the Pandavas, Draupadi’s powerful dissent against her husband King Yudhisthira in the Mahābhārata (And yet my deep troubles compel me to overstep the womanly conduct, make me speak up) is used as merely one instance of women’s immersion in discourse. India’s long…
