[Assam] A conversation with Amartya Sen - Outlook India

[Ram Sarangapani]

http://outlookindia.com/fullprint.asp?choice=1&fodname=20060821&fname=EAmartya+%28F%29&sid=1

For those who may be interested, this makes good reading.
  ________________________ <http://www.outlookindia.com/>   Magazine| Aug
21, 2006

conversation

*'Hope India Now Doesn't Get Too Hung Up On Cultivating Power To Feel For
The Other Side!' *

*The estimation of India as a global player should not become as much in
excess of reality now as it was below it in the past.*

ASHISH KUMAR SEN   *Nobel laureate Amartya Sen finds it hard not to feel
frustrated about India. For problems he had "grumbled" about in the '50s and
early '60s—illiteracy, lack of basic healthcare, social inequality,
discrimination against girls—still persist even today. Until recently the
Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, Prof Sen now serves as Lamont
University Professor at Harvard University where he teaches Economics and
Philosophy. Born in Santiniketan, he studied in Presidency College,
Calcutta, and Trinity College, Cambridge. A proud Indian, he still holds on
to his Indian citizenship and cares passionately about his roots. Prof Sen's
books have been translated into more than 30 languages, and include the
much-acclaimed The Argumentative Indian, and his most recent work Identity
and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny. Prof Sen talked to Ashish Kumar Sen
on why the world has started to see India differently. Excerpts from an
interview:*


*Is there a change in the world's perception of India?*

Yes indeed. It's very hard to miss that there is a substantial change. It's
to a great extent a correction that was needed. However, what we have to
watch is that the estimation of India as a global player does not become as
much in excess of reality now as it was below it in the past.

*Do you think the estimation of India as a global player is already in
excess of reality?*

This has not happened yet to any great extent, since there is such a backlog
of underestimation from the past (China, for example, is only beginning to
take India more seriously, after looking down on India fairly substantially
for many decades). But since the elevation of India in global estimation is
very pleasing to many Indians, there is a danger here of complacency which
we have to be careful to avoid.

*What explains this change in perception: is it related to the fact that
India is doing things differently? Or is it more because India has chosen to
forsake its socialist past and embrace a model of economic growth that has
the endorsement of global powers, notably the United States?*

I'm not sure what you mean by India's socialist past. A country that failed
to achieve the most elementary progress that most socialist countries in the
world achieved easily (despite their failures in many other fields), namely
universal schooling and basic education supported by the state, primary
healthcare for all provided by the state, comprehensive land reforms and so
on which pre-reform Russia, pre-reform China, Cuba, Vietnam and other
socialist countries achieved, can hardly be described as a socialist
country. If, however, by 'socialism' you mean an over-extended and
counterproductive state-based system of license raj, stifling domestic
enterprise and the development of modern industries and the modern services
sector, then certainly that change has been important, though it need not
involve any necessary abandonment of the ideal of egalitarian humanism that
has been central to the socialist vision presented by Jawaharlal Nehru and
others who led India to political independence.

Correcting policy mistakes by taking a closer look at reality is beneficial
mainly for the country itself, but the fact that this is happening via the
removal of the license raj brings respect from abroad too, and that has
certainly been a factor here. The changed position of the United States is,
however, mainly because of the end of the Cold War in which India tried to
be non-aligned in a way that the US certainly did not approve. The nature of
global politics has itself changed—the change is not confined just to India.


*One reason for the change in perceptions of India is the achievements of
its diaspora, particularly in the US and the United Kingdom.**What does the
diaspora mean for India? Should India be basking in its glory?*

Certainly the diaspora's success abroad has played a big part in greater
interest in India and also helped a fuller appreciation of the creative
talents in India. There is however no question of basking in the glory of
the diaspora since its achievements, while important, are limited and the
job that needs to be done at home, especially through removing poverty,
illiteracy and bad healthcare have an urgency that the success of the
diaspora does not in any way reduce. It's also important to recognise that
India's success as a functioning democracy, with a relatively free media,
regular multi-party elections and a lively civil society has also helped the
diaspora gain respect and acceptance abroad. While there have been domestic
failures, for example in basic education and healthcare, India's domestic
success, through a flourishing democracy and progress in advanced higher
education and technical skill formation, has given the diaspora an easy
entry into global civil society—and that too must not be underestimated.

*The consumption pattern of urban middle-class Indians is becoming
increasingly similar to their counterparts of the West. From household goods
to food to cultural products, there is now a close resemblance between
Indians and those in the West. Are Indians becoming increasingly similar to
their counterparts in the West? If so, what are the perils of this trend?*

The increase in global contact and association has led to much greater
homogeneity of the consumption of the rich across the world—it is not an
isolated trend exclusive to India (you see it in Rio, Accra and Johannesburg
as well as in Mumbai and Shanghai). This is, in a basic form, an age-old
phenomenon. I have discussed in my book *The Argumentative Indian* how the
consumption pattern of rich Indians changed in the early centuries AD,
because of the trade in luxury products from China (with plentiful
references in Indian literature, including Kalidasa and Bana), to Chinese
silk, Chinese fruits, Chinese cosmetics used by the rich. But this is
happening on a much larger scale in the contemporary world.

The basic problem is not what commodities the rich spend their money on, but
that the economic gap between the rich and the poor is so large and also
that it is growing (it has not grown as fast as in China, but it has
certainly grown in significant ways). In fact, it is the existence and the
expansion of this gap that we have to address. This may be an inevitable
part of the price to pay to retain high-skill technical experts within the
country and realism may well require that this connection be taken into
account. But social ethics also demands that we examine—with realism but
also with a sense of equity—what is really inescapable and what can be done
to reduce the divergent fortunes of the rich and very rich on the one hand,
and the poor and very poor on the other. This is not just a matter of the
commodity pattern of the consumption of the rich.

Having said that, however, I should also mention that there is still at
least one special problem in the hold of modern Western consumption patterns
on the rich in India—and in other poor countries. The labour component in
the production of these 'modern amenities' is often quite low in comparison
with the older patterns of luxury consumption (for example, widespread
services provided directly by unskilled labour), and this can have a
negative effect on labour demand and through that on employment. This is not
in itself a strong enough reason to curb that type of consumption through
government control, but it is a reason to pay special attention to the
critical role of employment generation in the process of economic
development and to see what can be done to address this issue.

*Even as India strives to become a global power, politically and
economically its social indices remain poor. In terms of human development,
India lags far behind. Has India become less caring? How does it dovetail
with India's quest to become a global power? And what kind of future do you
envisage for the poor as India changes?*

You are absolutely right to point to India's relatively poor record in human
development. This is not a new phenomenon, so it is not a question of India
becoming 'less caring' than in the past, but the old problem of the neglect
of social facilities and of the development of human capabilities which has
not been adequately addressed or removed. It is hard for me not to feel
frustrated when I look at some of the things I wrote in the media in the
1950s and early 1960s—grumbling about illiteracy, lack of basic health
facilities etc...they still remain relevant. I would have loved to have
become a purveyor of obsolete problems, but alas these problems are not
obsolete even now. More attention is certainly being paid by the present
government to elementary healthcare and other basic failures in capability
formation. But much more needs to be done, without shutting off other good
things like the expansion of Indian industries, extension of its global
economic connections, development of more technological sectors, greater
attention to physical infrastructure. These too are potentially helpful
developments for reducing economic deprivation, but they are not adequate in
themselves in eliminating India's handicap in human development.

*Post-9/11, India's democratic example has been hailed worldwide. Yet the
last 10-15 years have seen the emergence of unstable polity, rise of
religious fundamentalism, and the trend among lower castes to move away from
mainstream parties like the Congress. What explains the strengthening of the
politics of identity? Do you think this in itself is a reaction to
globalisation, and the shift in our politics from concentrating on 'poor
India' to 'shining India'?*

This is an important subject, but I don't think it is globalisation that is
the source of the problem here. Indeed, as a successful democracy, India's
ability to tackle these problems demands democratic politicisation of issues
of poverty and social backwardness, which is entirely compatible with a more
thriving participation of India in the global world. The exploitation of
divisive identities, by focusing on our contrasts and conflicts, neglecting
other identities that unite people in different ways, is a phenomenon that
has plagued the world persistently. The field of divisive action has
changed, but the basic problem of the exploitability of one division or
another—forgetting everything else—remains. World War I was fed by the
division of national identities, with the British, the Germans and the
French tearing each other apart. Now the most exploited source of
belligerent identity is linked to religious divisions, and here, despite
tendencies in that direction unleashed particularly by religious
majoritarianism, India's democracy has helped to reduce and restrain the
divisive exploitation of communal differences.

Indeed, in the reading of the outcome of the 2004 general elections, while
there are many local factors involved, it would be hard to overlook the real
presence of a general disapproval in the country of communal fanaticism
(especially after what happened in Gujarat in 2002). Nor can we overlook a
strong desire to reassert a commitment to the poor rather than taking the
'shining' of the middle classes to be itself adequate. More can, however, be
done in these respects and they demand greater political engagement with the
entire population—not just some sections of it to the exclusion of
others.However, you are also absolutely right that the fragmentation of
lower caste movements into divisive groups, rather than providing a united
front for social equity, has been a negative influence. It is the task of
the socially committed political leaders of today to focus more fully on the
shared challenges of economic poverty, social deprivation, gender inequality
and other defects that require a joint approach, rather than a divisive
outlook that splits the deprived groups into mutually hostile segments.

*To what extent is this change in perception an outcome of globalisation,
where knowledge of English has become a skill that counts. A large number of
Indians, even in villages, want to go through the English system of
education. What do you think could be the perils of this trend?*

Certainly globalisation has made English something like a lingua franca of
the world. We have to accept that, without seeing globalisation and the
spread of English as a necessarily problematic phenomenon. Indeed, I do not
see the wide interest in learning English as a regressive force, since the
use of the English language both allows India to speak to the world and
serves as the medium through which Indians from across the country can share
their technical knowledge and social and political dialogue. If the interest
in English were to eclipse the interest in India's enormously rich
languages, with its rich literature and long histories, that would be a
loss, but that is not the situation now and future dangers too can be
avoided through giving the issue our conscious attention. It is possible to
be both interested in the richness of India's own culture and heritage and
take an interest in the cultures and achievements of the rest of the world,
in exactly the way that Rabindranath Tagore discussed so eloquently and
convincingly. There is no necessary conflict between 'the home' and 'the
world', if we continue to stand on our own feet and look at the world with
interest and involvement, rather than with docility and slavishness.

What has to be watched, however, is the possibility that the role of English
acts as a serious barrier for the underprivileged to get their voices heard
whenever they are expressed in other languages. The linguistic divide can
also contribute to the strengthening of economic divisions. These are,
however, issues that can be addressed through intelligent and humane
government policy, rather than our seeing them as inescapable problems that
make the use of English irresistibly retrograde.

*The attributes of power you'd want India to acquire?*

I fear I am not a great believer in power as a source of redemption. Power
is mainly the dividing line that separates the powerful from the powerless.
Having been on the powerless side in the world for so long, I hope India
does not get too hung up on cultivating power to be on the other side! The
really important powers to acquire would come not so much from India's
nuclear arsenal or missiles, but from our ability to help in solving the
problems that ail the world today, which, alas, are too plentiful. We have
something to offer through our experience of a working democracy (not just
the rhetoric of democracy, delivered through invading armies) and sustained
secularism (tested but still thriving in India), and these are not
negligible issues in the thoroughly messed-up world today. If we do try to
be good global players in the confused world in which we live, then a bigger
global voice for India would indeed be an excellent thing.

There is a further issue about power. There is a positive role for the
empowerment of the underprivileged groups within India—the landless
labourers, the subjugated housewives, the economically deprived making a
precarious living, the social underdogs maltreated by the privileged, and
others.If we are concerned with inequality, then inequality of power must
command our attention. And if a reduction of inequality of power within
India is seen as making India as a whole more "powerful," then we may
sensibly want "more power" in that rather special sense. We have to think
more critically and more fully about exactly what powers we want, in what
sense, and precisely what we want to do with power. Having more power is not
a virtue in itself.
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