space of enlightened liberalism, and the veneration in which he is held by educated Sen, Argumentative Indians Indians whose hunger for recognition and pain at ’s invisibility – in global sport- ing events, for example – are themselves and Bengali Modernity sociological phenomena that merit consid- erable study, it becomes all the more im- Considering the public profile of , his domination of perative to subject Sen’s work and intellec- the public space of enlightened liberalism and the veneration in tual views to a rigorous examination. Alas, which he is held by educated Indians, it becomes all the more this documentary, which purports to imperative to subject his work and intellectual views to a rigorous “re-examine” Sen’s life, does no such thing. It is a particular debasement of the English examination. Alas, Suman Ghosh’s documentary film, Amartya language, and a sign of the lazy intellectual Sen: A Life Re-examined, does no such thing. culture of our times, that phenomena which have never been subjected to examination VINAY LAL the cultured, ecumenical, and humane voice in the first place are then put up for “re- of moderation, learning and awareness. It examination”. Past the initial montage of t has been reported that after Amartya would be difficult to charge Sen with excess adulatory comments from Sen’s peers and Sen won the Nobel Prize in economics of any kind: neither a nationalist nor an admirers, the documentary commences Iin 1998, parents in West began indigenist, Sen has also apparently not erred with Sen’s early years at Shantiniketan. to name their baby boys after him. Among on the side of unequivocally committing Lingering shots of Shantiniketan and the contemporary Indian intellectuals, he has himself to globalisation, unhampered liber- countryside around it set the pace for the a wider readership in the Anglophone world alisation, or free market fundamentalism. film, determine its mood and style, and than any of his peers; and though at least In this documentary, which is nominally furnish the intellectual motifs around which one other Indian economist, Jagdish shaped around a conversation between Sen one might frame a discussion of Sen’s Bhagwati, has often been mentioned as a and his former student, , now intellectual world. Sen found himself flour- possible Nobel laureate in economics, an economist of some renown at Cornell ishing in the air of freedom at the venerable among Indian economists Sen has a reach University, we hear Sen expressing more institution founded by Tagore: the students that is without comparison. One cannot than once an admiration for Adam Smith’s were not hampered by exams, and they think of many contemporary eminent eco- alleged humanism. Sen reminds us that were encouraged to look at the world nomists who write on politics, literature, Adam Smith, whose iconic status in laissez- outside – not just Europe, which too often and cinema with apparent ease, and one of faire economics is scarcely in doubt, also meant the world for colonised people, but his former students, Harvard history pro- championed state intervention to eliminate also China, Japan, Africa, and beyond. fessor Sugata , assures the viewers of poverty, and was even an adherent of the Sen’s professor, Dhiresh Bhattacharya, Suman Ghosh’s documentary film1 that view that an economy is to be judged by how suggests that Sen outgrew Shantiniketan, Sen has also made invaluable contribu- good it is for the poor. Sen comes across and that Cambridge, where Sen earned a tions to the study of Indian history. Those as something of a critic of the World Bank second undergraduate degree and a doc- economists, such as the late John Kenneth and the IMF, describing these institutions, torate, allowed Sen to pursue new ap- Galbraith, who were viewed as departing which arose out of the Bretton Woods con- proaches, engage in a different style of from the extraordinarily rigid protocols of ference (1944), as “not very democratic”. thinking, and ask searching questions. the discipline, which has been singular Though Sen agrees that the economic Sen never looked back, moving from one both in its insistence that it is an exact and reforms of 1991, stewarded by Manmohan distinction to another. complete “science” and in its contemptuous Singh as the then finance minister, were repudiation of theoretical trajectories – long overdue, he argues that the govern- Sen’s Economics among them, poststructuralism, post- ment was not sufficiently attentive to the colonial theory, postmodernism, and femi- social dimensions of reform and to such Whatever searching questions Sen may nism – that have in some measure informed sectors of state intervention as social have asked, the film leaves the viewer no other social science disciplines, soon found welfare, health, education, and micro- more the wiser. Before around the mid- themselves ostracised by their fellow eco- credit. Yet, as Sen’s fellow Nobel laureate, 1990s, when Sen started assuming the nomists. In this respect, at least, Amartya Sen Paul Samuelson, reminds us, Sen has been mantle of the “Renaissance man”, his work may have the unique distinction of having “solidly in the mainstream of economics”. on would have been most widely retained a following in his own discipline Sen, Samuelson tellingly adds, was “ideo- known to educated people outside the while continuing to gain adherents among logically a little more to the left than Milton circle of professional economists, and his other intellectual and educated circles. Friedman when he got the Nobel prize or famous observation that famines do not Prominent as is his role as a public Friedrich [von] Hayek.” Lest anyone should take place in open societies with public intellectual, it can quite reasonably be construe this as irrefutable evidence of accountability had almost canonic status. argued that Amartya Sen, alongside his Sen’s propensity towards left wing politics, The film makes virtually no mention of friend Martha Nussbaum, has garnered a one might ponder whether it is possible to Sen’s large body of work on famines. There place for himself as one of the pre-eminent be to the right of Milton Friedman. is a relatively lengthy discussion of “social spokespersons for the liberal sensibility, Considering, then, the public profile of choice”, but the film assumes some know- and he appears in much of his writings as Amartya Sen, his domination of the public ledge, on the viewer’s part, of Kenneth

5222 Economic and Political Weekly December 23, 2006 Arrow’s “impossibility theorem”. (Sen’s “genuine mulitculturalism” and “plural discovery that reason is not the historical specific contribution consisted in attempt- monoculturalism”, but here as in much of achievement of the European enlighten- ing to delineate the specific conditions his humanist writings of the last 15 years ment alone. This is mentioned as though under which Arrow’s theorem might come there is little awareness of the politics of previously no one was aware of the ex- to pass.) Sen’s role in the formulation of knowledge. Much more interesting is the egetical traditions of Hinduism, the de- the Human Development Index receives problem of how American multiculturalism bates between Shankaracharya and the mention, and a very gentle criticism by his has become a template for the world, and the Buddhists, the hermeneutic traditions of fellow Nobel laureate, Kenneth Arrow, consequences of the imposition of official Indian Buddhism and the stunning intel- who expresses uncertainty about the equal multiculturalism upon people who, so to lectual feats of Nagarjuna, or the long weight given to life expectancy, literacy, speak, always practised multiculturalism history, of which Debiprasad and income, is permitted. Though the on the ground. It is Sen who, at the Lionel Chattopadhyaya has written a magiste- viewer is often reminded about Sen’s Trilling seminar on (what else) “India and rial account of materialist schools of thought interest in poverty, one would not know the West” at Columbia University in the in ancient India. from the footage in this film that poverty early 1990s, at which this reviewer was One doubts very much that, in his debates has any relationship to the deprivation and present, launched into something of a with Tagore, Gandhi was drawing upon suffering that people experience in real life. discussion on whether William Jones, the Enlightenment traditions of rationality, The finance minister comes 18th century Orientalist who has been the just as it is doubtful that Tilak, for all his on towards the close of the film to assure subject of sustained intellectual inquiry, mastery of English common law and juris- the viewer that Sen’s ideas are in conver- was a good man or not. Sen, unsurprisingly, prudence, could have offered a vigorous gence with the work being done on the concluded that Jones was a “good man”. defence, which at places is reminiscent of ground by the government and NGOs to We might say that Suman Ghosh has Indian philosophical treatises, at his trials confront illiteracy and poverty, but this reached something of a similar conclusion in 1897 and 1908 without recourse to does little to disturb the atmosphere of about Sen, and so he ends up giving us a brahminical intellectual traditions. Sup- nobility, gentility, and civility which suf- hagiography rather than a critical exami- posing, however, that Sen has been parti- fuses the film and Sen’s life alike. The nation of Sen’s views. The author of the cularly attentive to India’s own rationalist horns blare, the Master of Trinity College, Argumentative Indian, one would have traditions, it becomes incumbent to ask appointed by royal warrant from her thought, deserves more. whether his work thus acquired a very majesty, is installed; the air comes alive different inflection. There is, in fact, nothing with the roll-call of Sen’s great predeces- Grandiose Claims to suggest that the ideas of poverty, justice, sors at Trinity: Byron, Tennyson, Newton, or welfare with which Sen works owe Bacon, among others. Ever so keen on For the first elements of a critique of Sen, anything at all to Indian intellectual tra- describing Indians as beholden to bizarre as well as this adulatory film, it would be ditions. Nothing in the long tradition of the rituals, one suspects that the colonial instructive to turn to the grandiose claims interrogation of the idea of poverty found, administrators were drawing on their made on Sen’s behalf by Sugata Bose. for example, in numerous bhakti traditions experience in Britain, which now derives Sen’s contribution to our understanding finds a place in Sen’s thinking, and it is a substantial part of its revenues from of Indian history, Bose tells us, is the unequivocally clear that the idioms through tourists enamoured of rituals and royalty. The camera lovingly follows Sen around the “Master’s Lodge”, permitting the or- INDIA FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS, Bangalore dinary viewer to experience vicariously Vacancy for two positions the intellectual life of the great man. Programme Executive: Sen himself comes across as a modest S/he will primarily hold responsibility for making grants under IFA’s New Performance and generous man, and his description programme. of how he self-diagnosed himself at 18, Applicants should have 6 or more years of experience in teaching, research or contemporary when he was struck with cancer and the performing arts practice. They should be conversant with current issues and activities in the performing arts. The compensation package will be in the scale of 3 to 5 lakh rupees doctors dismissed his medical complaints annually. as inconsequential, conveys not a contra- Head of Programmes dictory impression but rather the sense S/he will be the programme team’s chief strategist, and will also be responsible for community engagement initiatives like publications, festivals and conferences. S/he will also make grants both that Sen is a man of extraordinary under the Special Grants programme. determination and one not easily beholden Applicants should have 10 or more years of experience in teaching, research, arts practice to expert opinion. That may partly explain or managing programmes in the arts or humanities. They should be conversant with current why he has often ventured into fields issues and activities in the arts, demonstrate potential for leadership and be able to network and represent the organisation in different forums. The compensation package will be in about which he knows little, and where the scale of 6 to 8 lakh rupees annually. his views are often uninteresting, cliched, Applications labelled with the code “PE” and “HoP” respectively should be sent by January 15, and even embarrassing. 2007 to: One wonders, for example, how often The Executive Director Sen will flaunt Akbar as an instantiation India Foundation for the Arts Tharangini, 12th Cross, Raj Mahal Vilas Extension of India’s traditions of multiculturalism, Bangalore – 560 080 pluralism, and tolerance. Sen has written Tel: 080-2361-0583/84 widely in recent years on multiculturalism, Or sent by email to [email protected] and he even seeks to distinguish between For full advertisement visit www.indiaifa.org

Economic and Political Weekly December 23, 2006 5223 which Sen seeks to understand poverty are ends in Shantiniketan, and as in this film, those made familiar to us by economists which is peopled by fellow cheerleaders and professional social scientists working from the twin fan clubs of economists and squarely within the parameters of the Bengalis (all too often combined in the same academic disciplines. person), one has the inescapable feeling that Much is also made in Suman Ghosh’s film the bhadralok culture of is much too of Amartya Sen as the inheritor of the tra- busy referencing itself, applauding its own dition of and Satyajit members, and swelling with pride at its own Ray. As a general rule, the invocation of genius. Sugata Bose avers that, with Tagore, their names as part of a genealogical exercise Ray, and Sen we are better positioned is calculated to prevent, rather than foment, to comprehend that the “intellectual and discussion. It is supremely ironic that though cultural history of our times is characterised Shantiniketan was supposed to resuscitate by competing and multiple universalisms”, India’s links with the larger world, and in but a certain Gujarati bania, who knew particular with Asia, the Indian Ocean world, much better, would have recognised this for Africa and other parts of the world with the wishful thinking that it is. EPW which India’s trading, cultural, religious, and intellectual ties have an astonishingly Email: [email protected] long history, Shantiniketan’s largely Bengali students have never been able to steer very Note far from specific narratives of Bengali 1 Amartya Sen: A Life Re-examined, First Run/ modernity. What begins in Shantiniketan Icarus Films, New York, 2003, 56 mins.

5224 Economic and Political Weekly December 23, 2006