Reflections

I have been reading Amartya Sen’s “The Argumentative Indian” for quite sometime now. While Amartya Sen is a renowned Economist and a Noble Laureate, he is not much of a historian and this book stands testimony to that. The comments on the back of the book claim a lot about this being the best account of Indian history that must be read by every Indian. I beg to disagree. I strongly feel that Dr.Sen should focus on Economics and leave history to historians. The book is supposed to be a collection of essays on Indian culture, History and Identity. However there is a lot of repetition in all the essays and what stands stark clear is Dr.Sen’s limited knowledge of Indian History. All the essays revolve around one or all of the below points though the titles are different: The Bhagavad Gita as an argument between Krishna and Arjuna in the Mahabharatha Javali’s argument with Rama quoted in Ramayana Akbar’s forming Din Illahi as a combination of religions Dr.Sen’s strong views against the BJP ...