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A review by krayfish1
The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity by Amartya Sen
3.0
The book is a very long argument against Hindutva, the BJP, and other people who say that India should prioritize the Hindu religion in its laws. Many of the arguments for India being Hindu are based in cherry-picked historical events, and so the author dives into a historical look at the multi-religious, multicultural history of India.
Repeatedly made points:
Akbar (a muslim emperor of India from ~1500) held several meetings of people of different religions to promote religious harmony in the empire.
Alberuni (Iranian astronomer & mathematician from ~1000) translated Indian scientific and mathematical works and brought them to the Arabic speaking world
Ashoka (emperor, 3rd century BCE) developed rules for public discussion between people with very different views, and was Buddhist
The great Indian epics have large sections talking about atheism
"Asian values" (meaning Confucian hierarchy & tradition) are being touted by authoritarian governments, and are very narrow in scope; actual Asian values are much more varied.
Chapters:
1. Indians have always been prone to long public debates, everybody gets to debate, including women, atheists, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Parsees, Sikhs, Baha'is, etc.
3. Hindutva & the BJP suck
5. Rabindranath Tagore is the coolest.
7. The West talks about India in really biased ways and it affects the way India sees itself, so lets take a look at that. (Exoticism emphasizes what's different, curiosity emphasizes whats different, preparing British people to go rule there is super dismissive) (dismissiveness and exoticism combine to say that India is not very rational or scientific even though that's not true).
8. China and India had lots of trade and relations with each other. It wasn't just information about Buddhism that was traveling back and forth, there was public health, mathematics, linguistics, technology, etc. traveling between them as well.
10. When attempting to fix inequality, sometimes policies have unintended consequences, i.e. government buys up food to have a stock of emergency food and also tries to keep food prices high to help farmers, but there are a lot of people who can't afford food and are undernourished. Or: teachers were being oppressed and so teacher protections were increased, but now poor parents can't do anything when teacher just decide not to show up for work.
11. India has to do better about gender inequality. Efforts to increase agency of women, like literacy seem to be effective. The author did a lot of research on how many women are "missing" due to sex-selective abortions or inadequate health care (compared to men).
12. It was really stupid of the BJP to do nuclear testing in 1998.
15. The Hindu calendar isn't the oldest calendar in India, the Buddhist one is probably older, also one of the other Hindu calendars was based off of work done by a Muslim emperor, we have always had exchanges of ideas going on, why are y'all being separatist, isolationist, my-culture-is-better-than-your-culture jerks??
Repeatedly made points:
Akbar (a muslim emperor of India from ~1500) held several meetings of people of different religions to promote religious harmony in the empire.
Alberuni (Iranian astronomer & mathematician from ~1000) translated Indian scientific and mathematical works and brought them to the Arabic speaking world
Ashoka (emperor, 3rd century BCE) developed rules for public discussion between people with very different views, and was Buddhist
The great Indian epics have large sections talking about atheism
"Asian values" (meaning Confucian hierarchy & tradition) are being touted by authoritarian governments, and are very narrow in scope; actual Asian values are much more varied.
Chapters:
1. Indians have always been prone to long public debates, everybody gets to debate, including women, atheists, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Parsees, Sikhs, Baha'is, etc.
3. Hindutva & the BJP suck
5. Rabindranath Tagore is the coolest.
7. The West talks about India in really biased ways and it affects the way India sees itself, so lets take a look at that. (Exoticism emphasizes what's different, curiosity emphasizes whats different, preparing British people to go rule there is super dismissive) (dismissiveness and exoticism combine to say that India is not very rational or scientific even though that's not true).
8. China and India had lots of trade and relations with each other. It wasn't just information about Buddhism that was traveling back and forth, there was public health, mathematics, linguistics, technology, etc. traveling between them as well.
10. When attempting to fix inequality, sometimes policies have unintended consequences, i.e. government buys up food to have a stock of emergency food and also tries to keep food prices high to help farmers, but there are a lot of people who can't afford food and are undernourished. Or: teachers were being oppressed and so teacher protections were increased, but now poor parents can't do anything when teacher just decide not to show up for work.
11. India has to do better about gender inequality. Efforts to increase agency of women, like literacy seem to be effective. The author did a lot of research on how many women are "missing" due to sex-selective abortions or inadequate health care (compared to men).
12. It was really stupid of the BJP to do nuclear testing in 1998.
15. The Hindu calendar isn't the oldest calendar in India, the Buddhist one is probably older, also one of the other Hindu calendars was based off of work done by a Muslim emperor, we have always had exchanges of ideas going on, why are y'all being separatist, isolationist, my-culture-is-better-than-your-culture jerks??