The Argumentative Indian

We have an argumentative mind. An argumentative mind is a questioning mind. A questioning mind reflects the ability to reason, understand, and learn. It also reflects hollowness. A questioning mind asks convergent as well as divergent questions. Convergent questions are close-ended and saturated. ?The divergent questions are open-ended and unsaturated. Some questions have both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ answers. Some questions have no answer. “It is questions with no answers that set the limit of human possibilities, describe the boundaries of human existence,” said Milan Kundera.

The quality of the question reflects one’s cognitive abilities. The ability to think inquisitively is one of our critical survival skills. A good questioner has the mental agility to process and use all the absorbed information in an organized manner. Often, we ask questions but don’t expect any answer. Often, we expect only approbation. Socrates believed that the first step towards knowledge is the recognition of one’s ignorance.

Questions are like a goalpost even an imaginary one. If there is no such goalpost, there wouldn’t be any progress. Sadi Carnot asked himself, can’t a hundred percent efficient engine be conceived? An abstract concept, an engine with no losses. He conceived an ideal entity that can’t be reached. Many questioned his thought process. They asked - If a goal can’t be reached, should we try to reach there?

‘Ideal’ is like a thought experiment that can be thought of, but can’t be performed. A thought experiment is performed, nevertheless, because of its useful implications. Leon Lederman writes, “In the very beginning, there was a void, a nothingness containing no space, no time, no matter, no light, no sound. Yet the laws of nature were in place, and this curious vacuum held potential. Only God knows what happened at the very beginning?” Psychologists say the experience of the illusion of God is universal. The illusion is that someone up there is constantly watching us and is also concerned about our moral lives. When we know someone is watching us, we tend to behave differently. Studies indicate that supernatural beliefs promote altruistic behaviour and adherence to social norms. We are subjective idealists. We follow our brand of idealism. The problem is that our purposes and values are dynamic, and thus our idealism is provisional and tentative. With time, our questions change, and our arguments change. ?

Bipin Chandra Pal beautifully describes the Indian psyche. It is more transcendental than formal, more metaphysical than scientific, more imaginative than positive, and more idealistic than realistic. Indian values are more intellectual than physical, internal than external, emotional than rational. When one walks a mile to meet a friend, he feels he has walked only a few steps. If he has to do unpleasant work, he will say he walked a mile, when, in reality, he walked only a few steps. When a friend meeting a friend after a few weeks says, I have not seen you for ages he really, neither exaggerates nor lies, but simply applies his inner emotional standard to measure time.

Indians love paradoxical situations. They like to accept the new but find it difficult to reject the old. They are highly sensitive but their actions often lack the spirit of sensitivity. Fair play is as important to them as the foul play. We are both collectivists and individualists, religious as well as secular, spiritual as well as materialists, excessively dependent and also remarkably entrepreneurial, nonviolent, and violent.

Will Durant writes, “And though I have prepared myself with the careful study of a hundred volumes, this has all the more convinced me that my knowledge is trifling and fragmentary in the face of a civilization five thousand years old, endlessly rich in philosophy, literature, religion and art, and infinitely appealing in its ruined grandeur and its weaponless struggle for liberty.” Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all, Durant thought.

India is a functioning democracy. Chaos and conflict are part of the democracy. Chaos and conflict, arising out of the diversities of languages, religions, and ethnicities, have not broken up the country. ??Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen, however, are not sure of the glory of the much-talked-about achievements in new India.

In The Argumentative Indian, Amartya Sen writes, “Our ability to talk at some length is not a new habit. Our epics Ramayana and Mahabharata are its testimony. These 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.” India’s argumentative traditions are still alive and have continued to have their influence. Sen thinks, “seeing Indian traditions as overwhelmingly religious, or deeply anti-scientific, or exclusively hierarchical, or fundamentally unsceptical involves significant oversimplification of India’s past and present.”

India for a long time has been presented as a package of all ills, obviously with a vested interest. Pawan K Varma writes, “The country was seen as irrevocably fragmented or spiritually transcendent, hugely ungovernable or simplistically self-reliant, venal beyond redemption or blissfully unmaterialistic, impossibly opaque or wonderfully ancient and revealing.”

It is now India time. The argumentative Indian needs better interpretation in the eyes of the world. It is now an ‘awakened elephant’. People now come not only to see the amazing monuments but also to participate in joint ventures that are true ‘Joint’. India is no longer opaque. India can’t be neglected anymore. Uncertainty no longer defines India. Indians are more hopeful, and have resilience to adversity. India is a land of contradictions, a mixed bag of tradition and modernity. It is okay if it is a little verbose. ?

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