The Hindu : Amartya Sen warns against exclusivism

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jan 10, 2003

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Amartya Sen warns against exclusivism

By Anita Joshua

NEW DELHI JAN. 9. The Nobel laureate, Amartya Sen, today spoke out against the growing tendency within the country to project itself as an exclusive society, and stressed the need to protect the openness that has been the hallmark of India since time immemorial.

Speaking at the first plenary on `India and the Diaspora — Forging a Constructive Relationship' at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas here, Prof. Sen warned Indians against adopting a ``frog-in-the-well'' attitude, and made out a strong case for valuing, defending and fighting for the spirit of openness in which Indian civilisation blossomed.

Particularly critical of the efforts to appropriate certain mathematical principles and Sanskrit as India's exclusive contributions to the world, the economist said such claims ignore the fact that both flourished and were enriched by contacts with the outside world.

Though Prof. Sen did not elaborate on the reasons for raising an issue that has preoccupied public debate in India before a predominantly NRI audience, the delegates got a taste of the issue the Nobel laureate was addressing in the second plenary with the Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Murli Manohar Joshi.

At the outset itself, the Minister sought to drive home the point that India had a brilliant tradition in science and technology; something that even Prof. Sen did not dispute. However, lamenting the fact that few people were aware about India's age-old scientific temper, Dr. Joshi claimed that India was privy to various scientific principles in the pre-Christian era , that Indians were the pioneers in mathematics, physics and astronomy, and that zero was an Indian discovery.

While Prof. Sen did not once deny the fact that ancient India was rich in knowledge — be it mathematics, Sanskrit or astronomy — and conceded that ``we have reason to be proud of our tradition'', his contention was that ``we should remember that it was an open and dynamic tradition''.

And, he anchored his argument on the fact that the greatest Sanskrit grammarian, Pannini, was an Afghan. Similarly, while acknowledging that astronomy flourished in India, he said there can be no denying outside influences in this area as elsewhere which, according to him, helped India become the vibrant and dynamic civilisation the world knows it to be.

Though Prof. Sen drew a fuller house than Dr. Joshi, the two consecutive sessions provided the overseas Indians a fleeting glimpse of the debate on ``saffronisation'' with the economist celebrating India's ``unity in diversity'' even as the Minister sought to show modern India's effort to become a knowledge superpower as just an attempt to regain lost ground.

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