Joanna ________________
>From Sen's "The Argumentative Indian" (hardcover, 2005):
pages 12-14:
The historical roots of democracy in India are well worth considering, if only because the connection with public argument is often missed, through the temptation to attribute the Indian commitment to democracy simply to the impact of British influence [...]. [I]n general, the tradition of public reasoning is closely related to the roots of democracy across the globe. But since India has been especially fortunate in having a long tradition of public arguments, with toleration of intellectual heterodoxy, this general connection has been particularly effective in India. When, more than half a century ago, independent India became the first country in the non-Western world to choose a resolutely democratic constitution, it notonly used what it had learned from the institutional experiences in Europe and America (particularly Great Britain), it also drew on its own tradition of public reasoning and argumentative heterodoxy.
[...]
It is very important to avoid the twin pitfalls of (1) taking democracy to be just a gift of the Western world that India simply accepted when it became independent, and (2) assuming that there is something unique in Indian history that makes the country singularly suited to democracy. The point, rather, is that democracy is intimately connected with public discussion and interactive reasoning. Traditions of public discussion exist across the world, not just in the West.
[...]
Even though it is very often repeated that democracy is a quintessentially Western idea and practice, that view is extremely limited because of its neglect of the intimate connections between public reasoning and the development of democracy - a connection that has been profoundly explored by contemporary philosophers [...].
[...]
pages 75-80:
In that large tradition, there is indeed much to be proud of [he is talking about Indian achievements that the expat community could take pride in --ravi], including some ideas for which India gets far less credit than it could plausibly expect. Consider, for example, the tradition of public reasoning. Even though the importance of dialogue and discussion has been emphasized in the history of many countries in the world, the fact that the Indian subcontinent has a particularly strong tradition in recognizing and pursuing a dialogic commitment is certainly worth nothing, especially in the darkening world -- with violence and terrorism -- in which we live. It is indeed good to remember that some of the earliest open public deliberations in the world were hosted in India to discuss different points of views, with a particularly large meeting arranged by Ashoka in the third century BCE. It is good to remember also that Akbar championed -- even that was four hundred years ago -- the necessity of public dialogues and backed up his conviction by arranging actual dialogues between members of different faiths. [...]
It is at this time rather common in Western political discussions to assume that tolerance and the use of reason are quintessential -- possibly unique -- features of "Occidental values": for example, Samuel Huntington has insisted that the "West was West long before it was modern" and that the "sense of individualism and a tradition of individual rights and liberties" to be found in the West are "unique among civilized societies". Given the fair degree of ubiquity that such perceptions have in the modern West, it is perhaps worth noting that issues of individual rights and liberties have figured in discussions elsewhere as well, not least in the context of emphasizing the importance of the individual's right of decision-making, for example about one's religion.
There has been support as well as denial of such rights in the history of both Europe and India, and it is hard to see that the Western experience in support of these rights is peculiarly "unique among civilized societies". For example, when Akbar was issuing his legal order that "no man should be interfered with on account of religion, and anyone is to be allowed to go over to a religion that pleases him", and was busy arranging dialogues between Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jains, Parsees, Jews and even atheists, Giordano Bruno was being burnt at the stake in Rome for heresy, in the public space of Campo dei Fiori.
[more in the book]