Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Amartya Sen rewrites ‘The Argumentative Indian’

The Sensitive IndianKolkata. Nobel laureate and leading thinker Professor Amartya Sen has rewritten his bestselling book ‘The Argumentative Indian’. Prof Sen has replaced the word ‘argumentative’ with ‘sensitive’ in deference to changing times. Prof Sen released the first copies of 'The Sensitive Indian' here in a modest function.

“We no longer are augmentative. Nobody seems to be interested in a dialogue or argument. People are just sensitive. They come, they see, they feel sensitive and act in a fashion that is driven by pure sentiments. Sentiments have replaced arguments.” Prof Sen explained his decision to re-write the book.

He claimed that India still enjoys intellectual pluralism, but this pluralism is no longer the result of interactions between differing thoughts but due to emergence of one way sensitivities. Prof Sen claimed that such a scenario is not good, and Indians must get back to their argumentative ways.

When asked to point out some of the recent happenings that caused him to rewrite the book, Prof Sen claimed that almost everything that is happening around currently bears a testimony to his thoughts.

“Instead of discussing important and vital issues, we are sweeping them under the carpet claiming it hurts our sentiments. None of the policies of yesteryears are being questioned, but they are all being defended in name of sentiments. Look around and you would understand.” Prof Sen averred.

To find out the truth, Faking News carried out a small survey through interviews of various people and discovered that most of the people agreed with Professor Amartya Sen’s views.

“Root causes of terrorism are not being discussed as it hurts the sentiments of a particular community. You can’t question caste based policies without hurting the sentiments of another community. Women can’t be given equal rights as it hurts the sensitivities of the larger society. Gunda politicians can’t be criticized as it hurts sentiments of his supporters. It’s crazy. Prof Sen is absolutely right.” said Ms. Nirula McDonalds, a sociologist.

Ms. Nirula claimed that Indians have deliberately made themselves one way sensitive as they can’t or don’t want to afford a two-way or spontaneous sensitivity, where they should be moved by tragedies or sufferings of fellow Indians. “They have created insular walls of sensitivities around them and choose when to become sensitive, which is one way sensitivity” Ms. Nirula explained.

Common men on the street had tough time understanding the reasoning of Prof Sen or Ms. Nirula but they seemed to agree that Indians have become more and more sensitive.

“Arey bhai, the whole India is running on sentiments. Stock markets fell due to sentiments, what better example do you want? Finance minister and Prime minister argue everything is okay, but sentiments are still down. Obviously sentiments matter more than arguments to Indians.” Small investor Ramesh Jhunjhunwala told Faking News.

Whatever be the truth, it would be interesting to see if the rewritten book by Professor Amartya Sen again proves to be a bestseller.

1 Comments:

Anonymous said...

profound! :D
actually, on a serious note, it is indeed profound.....

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