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Overview
The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity (2005) is a collection of essays by Amartya Sen that argues India has a long tradition of public debate and heterodoxy, and that this tradition is essential to understanding Indian history and to its democracy. Sen challenges two simplified pictures of India: one that sees it as mainly spiritual and unchanging, and one that treats it as a single Hindu civilisation. The book matters because it ties identity to open reasoning and to plural voices.
Context
Sen wrote the essays over several years for different occasions. They were published as India saw sharp debate over national identity and as nuclear tests in 1998 brought a wave of nationalist assertion. Sen, a Bengali economist, draws on Sanskrit and Pali texts, Buddhist history, the Mughal period and the work of Tagore.
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Curator's notes
- Why it matters
- Development means expanding real capabilities, not only income. India's tradition of public reasoning.
- Use in training and coaching
- Capability approach to designing skill programmes for students and youth
- Connects to
- Smith; Rawls; Mill
- What to read
- Development as Freedom ch. 1–2
- Text (date)
- Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom; The Argumentative Indian (1999, 2005)
- Also in Modern political thought: Idea or text
- Development as Freedom; Identity and Violence
- Also in Modern political thought: Author (date)
- Amartya Sen (1999, 2006)
- Also in Modern political thought: Core argument
- Freedom as capability; people hold many identities, not one
- Also in Modern political thought: Use for you
- Counter to divisive identity politics
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