Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen at ICC
Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen Wows the audience at ICC
Dr Amartya Sen, the Economics Nobel Laureate, gave a wide ranging lecture yesterday (February 24th, 2010) at the India Community Center in Milpitas (ICC) and provided sweeping philosophical and pragmatic commentary on Justice, Humanism, Economics, Philosophy, Religion and even issues such as, “Is democracy possible in Iraq and Afghanistan?” He was speaking at a Forum@ICC event and the session was moderated by his student and one-time ICC Board member, Anuradha Luther.
The Forum@ICC, headed by ICC Board member Vibhu Mittal, focuses on discussions in different fields such as current affairs, international relations and trade, Indian culture, civilization and history, and general social issues that cut across different topics such as poverty alleviation, health, education and infrastructure. They have brought some noteworthy speakers to their sessions, such as Shashi Tharoor and President Abdul Kalam, but I think last night’s event with Dr. Sen was one of their most significant. Almost 450 people filled Malavalli Auditorium and more than a hundred written questions were submitted and expertly addressed by Dr. Amartya Sen, with humor, juicy asides, long historical and philosophical detours and personal insights.
Dr. Amartya Sen - Book Signing.
Some vignettes of the event are presented below. The event was streamed live on the web and can be accessed in its entirety here - http://bit.ly/9HTxm4
The theme for the event was Social Justice as expressed in his latest book, “The Idea of Justice”. Copies of his book were available for sale and Dr. Sen tirelessly stayed on for a book signing well into the evening, despite having traveled through many time zones to get here.
On Social Justice or Nyaya Dr. Sen shows his realism:
Niti vs Nyaya
Niti is an absolute ideal according to Dr. Sen. We establish, as part of Niti, what Universal values, if implemented completely, would result in the maximum public welfare and justice. It is an idealistic and abstract exercise but important for setting our framework. Niti cannot be implemented in real life because the state and society have diverse forces, interests, abilities and values at play.
Nyaya, on the other hand, is a pragmatic establishment and enforcement of laws and regulations. Nyaya is the politically possible translation of our ideals and will always fall short of perfection. But Nyaya is where the real creativity comes in and according to Amartya Sen it is the more important of the two concepts.
This is a continuing theme in the way Amartya Sen views the world. He is a philosopher and a humanist at his core but insists on pragmatism and reason playing a key role, as only what you can practically achieve matters. The struggle for good cannot rule out messy activities, such as war and accumulation of private wealth. In this regard you see Dr. Sen interpreting the self-contradiction and doubt expressed in the Bhagwadgita – the concept of a dharmic war, of practical actions in life that can result having to kill or permit the existence of (hopefully temporary) inequalities for a greater good.
Colonialism and its Impact on Indian Psyche
Here, Dr Sen can be quite incisive. He can clearly see the deep philosophical, humanistic and spiritual roots of Indian thought. He pointed out that Aristotlian philosophy, though egalitarian for its time, still did not include equality for women or freedom for the slaves. Asoka, on the other hand, at roughly the same period in history, spoke of total equality which included all humans and even extended to other forms of life. Akbar was the most inclusive of all emperors, inviting thoughts and ideas from across the spectrum and subjecting knowledge and religion to rigorous examination. This at the same time (1600 AD) as Europe was burning Giordano Bruno at the stake for his views on Astronomy.
British colonists were at first enamored by the richness of South Asia’s cultural content, but around 1820 onwards went of a concerted campaign to show how inferior it was. Lord Macaulay famously wrote that a single book in England’s libraries held more depth than all the literature of India! Also James Mill wrote a smug and derisive history of India without ever having taken the trouble to visit India. When asked about this he gave the curious explanation: “I didn’t want to become biased by actually visiting India”. Amartya Sen has famously excoriated Johns Mill and other revered pseudo intellectuals from England in much of his biting essays.
To Amartya Sen colonialism was unconditionally degrading, socially unjust and intellectually dishonest.
Dr. Sen being received by Talat Hasan, Chair Emeritus, Board of Trustees, ICC
Religion
Dr. Sen, who we know is a nonbeliever, first indulged us in a little bit of logic. He was after all a mathematician and a syllogist. He said, “Well if A implies B, then the contrapositive of that is that non-B implies non-A. So if you posit: There is a God who creates perfect justice, then if perfect justice does not exist it must imply that you were wrong about the existence of God. (God implies justice è non-justice implies non-God.)
Religion to Amartya Sen can provide truths, but they must be subjugated to reason and not the other way. He cited Buddha’s writings, which he says does not posit God or even absolute certitude about anything, relegating ”divine“ behavior to be reason and value-driven. Akbar, said Dr. Sen, who was a natural humanist and philosopher, would not accept religion as the starting point. Although he ultimately came to a form of Islam (closer to a sufi, reason driven Islam) he did so after much examination and multi-cultural debate.
And so it went. The evening went on with exciting commentary and shiny new venues of thought being shown us by this great philosopher/scientist/poet – shades of Tagore.
It was very provocative and deeply instructive. And nobody noticed the passage of time as three hours were soon consumed and it was time for the book signing.
Author of the above article: Ashok Vaish, ICC Volunteer Board of Director.