The Argumentative Indian – Class 12 English Chapter 18 Notes & NCERT PDF

About the Author

Amartya Sen (born 1933) won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998 for his work in welfare economics. He is Lamont Professor at Harvard. This text is the opening section of the first essay in The Argumentative Indian (2005), subtitled Writings on Indian Culture, History and Identity. Sen argues that India has a long tradition of questioning ideas through discussion and dialogue, and that this tradition supports its democracy and secularism.

Summary

Prolixity is not alien to us. "We are able to talk at some length." Krishna Menon's record speech at the United Nations lasted nine hours non-stop, on 23 January 1957, defending India's stand on Kashmir. It "has not been equalled by anyone from anywhere". The habit is old. The Mahabharata alone is "about seven times as long as the Iliad and the Odyssey put together". The epics are "engagingly full of dialogues, dilemmas and alternative perspectives".

Dialogue and significance: Krishna and Arjuna. The Bhagavad Gita presents "a tussle between two contrary moral positions":

Krishna "wins the argument, at least as seen in the religious perspective". Western admirers include Christopher Isherwood, who translated the Gita, and T.S. Eliot. Wilhelm von Humboldt called it "the most beautiful, perhaps the only true philosophical song". Eliot, in Four Quartets, summarises Krishna: "And do not think of the fruit of action! Fare forward... Not fare well / But fare forward, voyagers."

Yet the Mahabharata presents both sides "with much care and sympathy". The "tragic desolation" of the post-war land "can even be seen as something of a vindication of Arjuna's profound doubts". "There remains a powerful case for 'faring well', and not just 'forward'."

In a footnote, Sen recalls asking his Sanskrit teacher whether Krishna "got away with an incomplete and unconvincing argument". The reply was: "Maybe you could say that, but you must say it with adequate respect."

Oppenheimer. J. Robert Oppenheimer, watching the first nuclear explosion on 16 July 1945, quoted Krishna: "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." Like Arjuna, he was working for the "right side". Later he admitted: "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." Sen concludes that today's problems (terrorism, war, epidemics, poverty, nuclear confrontation) require "Arjuna's consequential analysis" alongside Krishna's duty. The "univocal 'message of the Gita'" needs the "broader argumentative wisdom of the Mahabharata".

Gender, caste and voice. Was argument confined to the male elite? Sen's answer is that the story "is much more complex".

Across class and caste:

The tradition does not simply favour the privileged. Some of its most powerful arguments were about "the least privileged groups".

Democracy as public reasoning. The argumentative tradition has "helped to make heterodoxy the natural state of affairs in India". Sen warns against two pitfalls:

In fact, democracy is "intimately connected with public discussion and interactive reasoning", which exists across the world. India, the first non-Western country to choose "a resolutely democratic constitution", drew on both Western institutions and its own tradition.

Themes & Arguments

Style

This is argumentative writing. Claims are supported by evidence: Menon's speech, the length of the epics, Gargi and Maitreyi, the dates of Naidu and Thatcher. Sen qualifies statements carefully ("often enough", "perhaps", "at least as seen in"). His tone is scholarly, balanced and lightly humorous ("the modest Homer"). Footnotes add personal and historical detail.

Word Power

Board Exam Focus

The Appreciation exercise asks for evidence for each claim. For example, "Prolixity is not alien" is supported by Menon's nine-hour speech and the length of the epics.

Grammar from the exercises: noun phrases, apposition ("The ancient Sanskrit epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata,") and parenthetical clauses.

Common Mistakes