NCERT Textbook: Non-Fiction: The Argumentative Indian | Class 12 English Kaleidoscope - Humanities/Arts PDF Download

 Page 1


176/KALEIDOSCOPE
Amartya Sen
Born 1933
5 5
5 5 5
The Argumentative Indian The Argumentative Indian The Argumentative Indian The Argumentative Indian The Argumentative Indian
Amartya Sen was awarded the Nobel Prize in
Economics in 1998 for his contribution in the
field of welfare economics. He is Lamont
Professor at Harvard.
This text forms the opening sections of the first
essay in Sen’s book of the same title published
in 2005. The sub-title of the book is ‘Writings
on Indian Culture, History and Identity’. Sen
argues in this essay that in India there has
been a long tradition of questioning the truth of
ideas through discussion and dialogue.
Prolixity is not alien to us in India. We are able to talk at
some length. Krishna Menon’s* record of the longest speech
ever delivered at the United Nations (nine hours non-stop),
established half a century ago (when Menon was leading
the Indian delegation), has not been equalled by anyone
from anywhere. Other peaks of loquaciousness have been
scaled by other Indians. We do like to speak.
This is not a new habit. The ancient Sanskrit epics,
the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, which are frequently
compared with the Iliad and the Odyssey, are colossally
longer than the works that the modest Homer could
manage. Indeed, the Mahabharata alone is about seven
times as long as the Iliad and the Odyssey put together.
The Ramayana and the Mahabharata are certainly great
* Krishna Menon was India’s Defence Minister from 1957 to 1962. He led the Indian delegation
to the United Nations, and on 23 January 1957 delivered an unprecedented 9-hour speech
defending India’s stand on Kashmir.
.
.
2024-25
Page 2


176/KALEIDOSCOPE
Amartya Sen
Born 1933
5 5
5 5 5
The Argumentative Indian The Argumentative Indian The Argumentative Indian The Argumentative Indian The Argumentative Indian
Amartya Sen was awarded the Nobel Prize in
Economics in 1998 for his contribution in the
field of welfare economics. He is Lamont
Professor at Harvard.
This text forms the opening sections of the first
essay in Sen’s book of the same title published
in 2005. The sub-title of the book is ‘Writings
on Indian Culture, History and Identity’. Sen
argues in this essay that in India there has
been a long tradition of questioning the truth of
ideas through discussion and dialogue.
Prolixity is not alien to us in India. We are able to talk at
some length. Krishna Menon’s* record of the longest speech
ever delivered at the United Nations (nine hours non-stop),
established half a century ago (when Menon was leading
the Indian delegation), has not been equalled by anyone
from anywhere. Other peaks of loquaciousness have been
scaled by other Indians. We do like to speak.
This is not a new habit. The ancient Sanskrit epics,
the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, which are frequently
compared with the Iliad and the Odyssey, are colossally
longer than the works that the modest Homer could
manage. Indeed, the Mahabharata alone is about seven
times as long as the Iliad and the Odyssey put together.
The Ramayana and the Mahabharata are certainly great
* Krishna Menon was India’s Defence Minister from 1957 to 1962. He led the Indian delegation
to the United Nations, and on 23 January 1957 delivered an unprecedented 9-hour speech
defending India’s stand on Kashmir.
.
.
2024-25
177/THE ARGUMENTATIVE INDIAN
epics: I recall with much joy how my own life was vastly
enriched when I encountered them first as a restless
youngster looking for intellectual stimulation as well as
sheer entertainment. But they proceed from stories to
stories woven around their principal tales, and are
engagingly full of dialogues, dilemmas and alternative
perspectives. And we encounter masses of arguments and
counterarguments spread over incessant debates and
disputations.
Dialogue and Significance
The arguments are also, often enough, quite
substantive. For example, the famous Bhagavad Gita, which
is one small section of the Mahabharata, presents a tussle
between two contrary moral positions —Krishna’s emphasis
on doing one’s duty, on one side, and Arjuna’s focus on
avoiding bad consequences (and generating good ones), on
the other. The debate occurs on the eve of the great war
that is a central event in the Mahabharata. Watching the
two armies readying for war, profound doubts about the
correctness of what they are doing are raised by Arjuna,
the peerless and invincible warrior in the army of the just
and honourable royal family (the Pandavas) who are about
to fight the unjust usurpers (the Kauravas).
Arjuna questions whether it is right to be concerned
only with one’s duty to promote a just cause and be
indifferent to the misery and the slaughter—even of one’s
kin—that the war itself would undoubtedly cause. Krishna,
a divine incarnation in the form of human being (in fact,
he is also Arjuna’s charioteer), argues against Arjuna. His
response takes the form of articulating principles of action—
based on the priority of doing one’s duty—which have been
repeated again and again in Indian philosophy. Krishna
insists on Arjuna’s duty to fight, irrespective of his
evaluation of the consequences. It is a just cause, and, as
a warrior and a general on whom his side must rely, Arjuna
cannot waver from his obligations, no matter what the
consequences are.
. .
2024-25
Page 3


176/KALEIDOSCOPE
Amartya Sen
Born 1933
5 5
5 5 5
The Argumentative Indian The Argumentative Indian The Argumentative Indian The Argumentative Indian The Argumentative Indian
Amartya Sen was awarded the Nobel Prize in
Economics in 1998 for his contribution in the
field of welfare economics. He is Lamont
Professor at Harvard.
This text forms the opening sections of the first
essay in Sen’s book of the same title published
in 2005. The sub-title of the book is ‘Writings
on Indian Culture, History and Identity’. Sen
argues in this essay that in India there has
been a long tradition of questioning the truth of
ideas through discussion and dialogue.
Prolixity is not alien to us in India. We are able to talk at
some length. Krishna Menon’s* record of the longest speech
ever delivered at the United Nations (nine hours non-stop),
established half a century ago (when Menon was leading
the Indian delegation), has not been equalled by anyone
from anywhere. Other peaks of loquaciousness have been
scaled by other Indians. We do like to speak.
This is not a new habit. The ancient Sanskrit epics,
the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, which are frequently
compared with the Iliad and the Odyssey, are colossally
longer than the works that the modest Homer could
manage. Indeed, the Mahabharata alone is about seven
times as long as the Iliad and the Odyssey put together.
The Ramayana and the Mahabharata are certainly great
* Krishna Menon was India’s Defence Minister from 1957 to 1962. He led the Indian delegation
to the United Nations, and on 23 January 1957 delivered an unprecedented 9-hour speech
defending India’s stand on Kashmir.
.
.
2024-25
177/THE ARGUMENTATIVE INDIAN
epics: I recall with much joy how my own life was vastly
enriched when I encountered them first as a restless
youngster looking for intellectual stimulation as well as
sheer entertainment. But they proceed from stories to
stories woven around their principal tales, and are
engagingly full of dialogues, dilemmas and alternative
perspectives. And we encounter masses of arguments and
counterarguments spread over incessant debates and
disputations.
Dialogue and Significance
The arguments are also, often enough, quite
substantive. For example, the famous Bhagavad Gita, which
is one small section of the Mahabharata, presents a tussle
between two contrary moral positions —Krishna’s emphasis
on doing one’s duty, on one side, and Arjuna’s focus on
avoiding bad consequences (and generating good ones), on
the other. The debate occurs on the eve of the great war
that is a central event in the Mahabharata. Watching the
two armies readying for war, profound doubts about the
correctness of what they are doing are raised by Arjuna,
the peerless and invincible warrior in the army of the just
and honourable royal family (the Pandavas) who are about
to fight the unjust usurpers (the Kauravas).
Arjuna questions whether it is right to be concerned
only with one’s duty to promote a just cause and be
indifferent to the misery and the slaughter—even of one’s
kin—that the war itself would undoubtedly cause. Krishna,
a divine incarnation in the form of human being (in fact,
he is also Arjuna’s charioteer), argues against Arjuna. His
response takes the form of articulating principles of action—
based on the priority of doing one’s duty—which have been
repeated again and again in Indian philosophy. Krishna
insists on Arjuna’s duty to fight, irrespective of his
evaluation of the consequences. It is a just cause, and, as
a warrior and a general on whom his side must rely, Arjuna
cannot waver from his obligations, no matter what the
consequences are.
. .
2024-25
178/KALEIDOSCOPE
Krishna’s hallowing of the demands of duty wins the
argument, at least as seen in the religious perspective.
Indeed, Krishna’s conversations with Arjuna, the Bhagavad
Gita, became a treatise of great theological importance in
Hindu philosophy, focusing particularly on the ‘removal’ of
Arjuna’s doubts. Krishna’s moral position has also been
eloquently endorsed by many philosophical and literary
commentators across the world, such as Christopher
Isherwood and T. S. Eliot. Isherwood in fact translated the
Bhagavad Gita into English. This admiration for the Gita,
and for Krishna’s arguments in particular, has been a
lasting phenomenon in parts of European culture. It was
spectacularly praised in the early nineteenth century by
Wilhelm von Humboldt as ‘the most beautiful, perhaps the
only true philosophical song existing in any known tongue’.
In a poem in Four Quartets, Eliot summarises Krishna’s
view in the form of an admonishment: ‘And do not think of
the fruit of action! Fare forward’. Eliot explains: ‘Not fare
well/But fare forward, voyagers’.
And yet, as a debate in which there are two reasonable
sides, the epic Mahabharata itself presents, sequentially,
each of the two contrary arguments with much care and
sympathy. Indeed, the tragic desolation that the post-
combat and post-carnage land—largely the Indo-Gangetic
plain—seems to face towards the end of the Mahabharata
can even be seen as something of a vindication of Arjuna’s
profound doubts. Arjuna’s contrary arguments are not really
vanquished, no matter what the ‘message’ of the Bhagavad
Gita is meant to be. There remains a powerful case for
‘faring well’, and not just ‘forward’.*
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
* As a high-school student, when I asked my Sanskrit teacher whether it would be permissible
to say that the divine Krishna got away with an incomplete and unconvincing argument, he
replied: ‘Maybe you could say that, but you must say it with adequate respect.’ I have
presented elsewhere a critique—I hope with adequate respect—of Krishna’s deontology,
alongwith a defence of Arjuna’s consequential perspective, in ‘Consequential Evaluation
and Practical Reason’, Journal of Philosophy 97 (Sept. 2000).
2024-25
Page 4


176/KALEIDOSCOPE
Amartya Sen
Born 1933
5 5
5 5 5
The Argumentative Indian The Argumentative Indian The Argumentative Indian The Argumentative Indian The Argumentative Indian
Amartya Sen was awarded the Nobel Prize in
Economics in 1998 for his contribution in the
field of welfare economics. He is Lamont
Professor at Harvard.
This text forms the opening sections of the first
essay in Sen’s book of the same title published
in 2005. The sub-title of the book is ‘Writings
on Indian Culture, History and Identity’. Sen
argues in this essay that in India there has
been a long tradition of questioning the truth of
ideas through discussion and dialogue.
Prolixity is not alien to us in India. We are able to talk at
some length. Krishna Menon’s* record of the longest speech
ever delivered at the United Nations (nine hours non-stop),
established half a century ago (when Menon was leading
the Indian delegation), has not been equalled by anyone
from anywhere. Other peaks of loquaciousness have been
scaled by other Indians. We do like to speak.
This is not a new habit. The ancient Sanskrit epics,
the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, which are frequently
compared with the Iliad and the Odyssey, are colossally
longer than the works that the modest Homer could
manage. Indeed, the Mahabharata alone is about seven
times as long as the Iliad and the Odyssey put together.
The Ramayana and the Mahabharata are certainly great
* Krishna Menon was India’s Defence Minister from 1957 to 1962. He led the Indian delegation
to the United Nations, and on 23 January 1957 delivered an unprecedented 9-hour speech
defending India’s stand on Kashmir.
.
.
2024-25
177/THE ARGUMENTATIVE INDIAN
epics: I recall with much joy how my own life was vastly
enriched when I encountered them first as a restless
youngster looking for intellectual stimulation as well as
sheer entertainment. But they proceed from stories to
stories woven around their principal tales, and are
engagingly full of dialogues, dilemmas and alternative
perspectives. And we encounter masses of arguments and
counterarguments spread over incessant debates and
disputations.
Dialogue and Significance
The arguments are also, often enough, quite
substantive. For example, the famous Bhagavad Gita, which
is one small section of the Mahabharata, presents a tussle
between two contrary moral positions —Krishna’s emphasis
on doing one’s duty, on one side, and Arjuna’s focus on
avoiding bad consequences (and generating good ones), on
the other. The debate occurs on the eve of the great war
that is a central event in the Mahabharata. Watching the
two armies readying for war, profound doubts about the
correctness of what they are doing are raised by Arjuna,
the peerless and invincible warrior in the army of the just
and honourable royal family (the Pandavas) who are about
to fight the unjust usurpers (the Kauravas).
Arjuna questions whether it is right to be concerned
only with one’s duty to promote a just cause and be
indifferent to the misery and the slaughter—even of one’s
kin—that the war itself would undoubtedly cause. Krishna,
a divine incarnation in the form of human being (in fact,
he is also Arjuna’s charioteer), argues against Arjuna. His
response takes the form of articulating principles of action—
based on the priority of doing one’s duty—which have been
repeated again and again in Indian philosophy. Krishna
insists on Arjuna’s duty to fight, irrespective of his
evaluation of the consequences. It is a just cause, and, as
a warrior and a general on whom his side must rely, Arjuna
cannot waver from his obligations, no matter what the
consequences are.
. .
2024-25
178/KALEIDOSCOPE
Krishna’s hallowing of the demands of duty wins the
argument, at least as seen in the religious perspective.
Indeed, Krishna’s conversations with Arjuna, the Bhagavad
Gita, became a treatise of great theological importance in
Hindu philosophy, focusing particularly on the ‘removal’ of
Arjuna’s doubts. Krishna’s moral position has also been
eloquently endorsed by many philosophical and literary
commentators across the world, such as Christopher
Isherwood and T. S. Eliot. Isherwood in fact translated the
Bhagavad Gita into English. This admiration for the Gita,
and for Krishna’s arguments in particular, has been a
lasting phenomenon in parts of European culture. It was
spectacularly praised in the early nineteenth century by
Wilhelm von Humboldt as ‘the most beautiful, perhaps the
only true philosophical song existing in any known tongue’.
In a poem in Four Quartets, Eliot summarises Krishna’s
view in the form of an admonishment: ‘And do not think of
the fruit of action! Fare forward’. Eliot explains: ‘Not fare
well/But fare forward, voyagers’.
And yet, as a debate in which there are two reasonable
sides, the epic Mahabharata itself presents, sequentially,
each of the two contrary arguments with much care and
sympathy. Indeed, the tragic desolation that the post-
combat and post-carnage land—largely the Indo-Gangetic
plain—seems to face towards the end of the Mahabharata
can even be seen as something of a vindication of Arjuna’s
profound doubts. Arjuna’s contrary arguments are not really
vanquished, no matter what the ‘message’ of the Bhagavad
Gita is meant to be. There remains a powerful case for
‘faring well’, and not just ‘forward’.*
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
* As a high-school student, when I asked my Sanskrit teacher whether it would be permissible
to say that the divine Krishna got away with an incomplete and unconvincing argument, he
replied: ‘Maybe you could say that, but you must say it with adequate respect.’ I have
presented elsewhere a critique—I hope with adequate respect—of Krishna’s deontology,
alongwith a defence of Arjuna’s consequential perspective, in ‘Consequential Evaluation
and Practical Reason’, Journal of Philosophy 97 (Sept. 2000).
2024-25
179/THE ARGUMENTATIVE INDIAN
force of the first nuclear explosion devised by man. Like
the advice that Arjuna had received about his duty as a
warrior fighting for a just cause, Oppenheimer, the
physicist, could well find justification in his technical
commitment to develop a bomb for what was clearly the
right side. Scrutinizing—indeed criticising—his own
actions, Oppenheimer said later on: ‘When you see
something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do
it and you argue about what to do about it only after you
have had your technical success.’ Despite that compulsion
to ‘fare forward’, there was reason also for reflecting on
Arjuna’s concerns: How can good come from killing so many
people? And why should I seek victory, kingdom or
happiness for my own side?
These arguments remain thoroughly relevant in the
contemporary world. The case for doing what one sees as
one’s duty must be strong, but how can we be indifferent
to the consequences that may follow from our doing what
we take to be our just duty? As we reflect on the manifest
problems of our global world (from terrorism, wars and
violence to epidemics, insecurity and gruelling poverty), or
on India’s special concerns (such as economic development,
nuclear confrontation or regional peace), it is important to
take on board Arjuna’s consequential analysis, in addition
to considering Krishna’s arguments for doing one’s duty.
The univocal ‘message of the Gita’ requires supplementation
by the broader argumentative wisdom of the Mahabharata,
of which the Gita is only one small part.
Stop and Think Stop and Think Stop and Think Stop and Think Stop and Think
1. Sen quotes Eliot’s lines: ‘Not fare well/But fare forward
voyagers’. Distinguish between ‘faring forward’
(Krishna’s position in the Gita) and ‘faring well’ (the
position that Sen advocates).
2. Sen draws a parallel between the moral dilemma in
the Krishna-Arjuna dialogue and J. R. Oppenheimer’s
response to the nuclear explosion in 1945. What is
the basis for this?
2024-25
Page 5


176/KALEIDOSCOPE
Amartya Sen
Born 1933
5 5
5 5 5
The Argumentative Indian The Argumentative Indian The Argumentative Indian The Argumentative Indian The Argumentative Indian
Amartya Sen was awarded the Nobel Prize in
Economics in 1998 for his contribution in the
field of welfare economics. He is Lamont
Professor at Harvard.
This text forms the opening sections of the first
essay in Sen’s book of the same title published
in 2005. The sub-title of the book is ‘Writings
on Indian Culture, History and Identity’. Sen
argues in this essay that in India there has
been a long tradition of questioning the truth of
ideas through discussion and dialogue.
Prolixity is not alien to us in India. We are able to talk at
some length. Krishna Menon’s* record of the longest speech
ever delivered at the United Nations (nine hours non-stop),
established half a century ago (when Menon was leading
the Indian delegation), has not been equalled by anyone
from anywhere. Other peaks of loquaciousness have been
scaled by other Indians. We do like to speak.
This is not a new habit. The ancient Sanskrit epics,
the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, which are frequently
compared with the Iliad and the Odyssey, are colossally
longer than the works that the modest Homer could
manage. Indeed, the Mahabharata alone is about seven
times as long as the Iliad and the Odyssey put together.
The Ramayana and the Mahabharata are certainly great
* Krishna Menon was India’s Defence Minister from 1957 to 1962. He led the Indian delegation
to the United Nations, and on 23 January 1957 delivered an unprecedented 9-hour speech
defending India’s stand on Kashmir.
.
.
2024-25
177/THE ARGUMENTATIVE INDIAN
epics: I recall with much joy how my own life was vastly
enriched when I encountered them first as a restless
youngster looking for intellectual stimulation as well as
sheer entertainment. But they proceed from stories to
stories woven around their principal tales, and are
engagingly full of dialogues, dilemmas and alternative
perspectives. And we encounter masses of arguments and
counterarguments spread over incessant debates and
disputations.
Dialogue and Significance
The arguments are also, often enough, quite
substantive. For example, the famous Bhagavad Gita, which
is one small section of the Mahabharata, presents a tussle
between two contrary moral positions —Krishna’s emphasis
on doing one’s duty, on one side, and Arjuna’s focus on
avoiding bad consequences (and generating good ones), on
the other. The debate occurs on the eve of the great war
that is a central event in the Mahabharata. Watching the
two armies readying for war, profound doubts about the
correctness of what they are doing are raised by Arjuna,
the peerless and invincible warrior in the army of the just
and honourable royal family (the Pandavas) who are about
to fight the unjust usurpers (the Kauravas).
Arjuna questions whether it is right to be concerned
only with one’s duty to promote a just cause and be
indifferent to the misery and the slaughter—even of one’s
kin—that the war itself would undoubtedly cause. Krishna,
a divine incarnation in the form of human being (in fact,
he is also Arjuna’s charioteer), argues against Arjuna. His
response takes the form of articulating principles of action—
based on the priority of doing one’s duty—which have been
repeated again and again in Indian philosophy. Krishna
insists on Arjuna’s duty to fight, irrespective of his
evaluation of the consequences. It is a just cause, and, as
a warrior and a general on whom his side must rely, Arjuna
cannot waver from his obligations, no matter what the
consequences are.
. .
2024-25
178/KALEIDOSCOPE
Krishna’s hallowing of the demands of duty wins the
argument, at least as seen in the religious perspective.
Indeed, Krishna’s conversations with Arjuna, the Bhagavad
Gita, became a treatise of great theological importance in
Hindu philosophy, focusing particularly on the ‘removal’ of
Arjuna’s doubts. Krishna’s moral position has also been
eloquently endorsed by many philosophical and literary
commentators across the world, such as Christopher
Isherwood and T. S. Eliot. Isherwood in fact translated the
Bhagavad Gita into English. This admiration for the Gita,
and for Krishna’s arguments in particular, has been a
lasting phenomenon in parts of European culture. It was
spectacularly praised in the early nineteenth century by
Wilhelm von Humboldt as ‘the most beautiful, perhaps the
only true philosophical song existing in any known tongue’.
In a poem in Four Quartets, Eliot summarises Krishna’s
view in the form of an admonishment: ‘And do not think of
the fruit of action! Fare forward’. Eliot explains: ‘Not fare
well/But fare forward, voyagers’.
And yet, as a debate in which there are two reasonable
sides, the epic Mahabharata itself presents, sequentially,
each of the two contrary arguments with much care and
sympathy. Indeed, the tragic desolation that the post-
combat and post-carnage land—largely the Indo-Gangetic
plain—seems to face towards the end of the Mahabharata
can even be seen as something of a vindication of Arjuna’s
profound doubts. Arjuna’s contrary arguments are not really
vanquished, no matter what the ‘message’ of the Bhagavad
Gita is meant to be. There remains a powerful case for
‘faring well’, and not just ‘forward’.*
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
* As a high-school student, when I asked my Sanskrit teacher whether it would be permissible
to say that the divine Krishna got away with an incomplete and unconvincing argument, he
replied: ‘Maybe you could say that, but you must say it with adequate respect.’ I have
presented elsewhere a critique—I hope with adequate respect—of Krishna’s deontology,
alongwith a defence of Arjuna’s consequential perspective, in ‘Consequential Evaluation
and Practical Reason’, Journal of Philosophy 97 (Sept. 2000).
2024-25
179/THE ARGUMENTATIVE INDIAN
force of the first nuclear explosion devised by man. Like
the advice that Arjuna had received about his duty as a
warrior fighting for a just cause, Oppenheimer, the
physicist, could well find justification in his technical
commitment to develop a bomb for what was clearly the
right side. Scrutinizing—indeed criticising—his own
actions, Oppenheimer said later on: ‘When you see
something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do
it and you argue about what to do about it only after you
have had your technical success.’ Despite that compulsion
to ‘fare forward’, there was reason also for reflecting on
Arjuna’s concerns: How can good come from killing so many
people? And why should I seek victory, kingdom or
happiness for my own side?
These arguments remain thoroughly relevant in the
contemporary world. The case for doing what one sees as
one’s duty must be strong, but how can we be indifferent
to the consequences that may follow from our doing what
we take to be our just duty? As we reflect on the manifest
problems of our global world (from terrorism, wars and
violence to epidemics, insecurity and gruelling poverty), or
on India’s special concerns (such as economic development,
nuclear confrontation or regional peace), it is important to
take on board Arjuna’s consequential analysis, in addition
to considering Krishna’s arguments for doing one’s duty.
The univocal ‘message of the Gita’ requires supplementation
by the broader argumentative wisdom of the Mahabharata,
of which the Gita is only one small part.
Stop and Think Stop and Think Stop and Think Stop and Think Stop and Think
1. Sen quotes Eliot’s lines: ‘Not fare well/But fare forward
voyagers’. Distinguish between ‘faring forward’
(Krishna’s position in the Gita) and ‘faring well’ (the
position that Sen advocates).
2. Sen draws a parallel between the moral dilemma in
the Krishna-Arjuna dialogue and J. R. Oppenheimer’s
response to the nuclear explosion in 1945. What is
the basis for this?
2024-25
180/KALEIDOSCOPE
Gender , Caste and Voice
There is, however, a serious question to be asked as to
whether the tradition of arguments and disputations has
been confined to an exclusive part of the Indian
population—perhaps just to the members of the male elite.
It would, of course, be hard to expect that argumentational
participation would be uniformly distributed over all
segments of the population, but India has had deep
inequalities along the lines of gender, class, caste and
community (on which more presently). The social relevance
of the argumentative tradition would be severely limited if
disadvantaged sections were effectively barred from
participation. The story here is, however, much more
complex than a simple generalisation can capture.
I begin with gender. There can be little doubt that men
have tended, by and large, to rule the roost in argumentative
moves in India. But despite that, the participation of women
in both political leadership and intellectual pursuits has
not been at all negligible. This is obvious enough today,
particularly in politics. Indeed, many of the dominant
political parties in India—national as well as regional—are
currently led by women and have been so led in the past.
But even in the national movement for Indian independence,
led by the Congress Party, there were many more women in
positions of importance than in the Russian and Chinese
revolutionary movements put together. It is also perhaps
worth noting that Sarojini Naidu, the first woman President
of the Indian National Congress, was elected in 1925, fifty
years earlier than the election of the first woman leader of
a major British political party (Margaret Thatcher in 1975).*
The second woman head of the Indian National Congress,
Nellie Sengupta, was elected in 1933.
* The Presidentship of the Congress Party was not by any means a formal position only.
Indeed, the election of Subhas Chandra Bose (the fiery spokesman of the increasing—and
increasingly forceful—resistance to the British Raj) as the President of Congress in 1938
and in 1939 led to a great inner-party tussle, with Mohandas Gandhi working tirelessly to
oust Bose. This was secured—not entirely with propriety or elegance—shortly after Bose’s
Presidential Address proposing a strict ‘time limit’ for the British to quit India or to face a less
nonviolent opposition. The role of the Congress President in directing the Party has remained
important. In the general elections in 2004, when Sonia Gandhi emerged victorious as the
President of Congress, she chose to remain in that position, rather than take up the role of
Prime Minister .
2024-25