ELECTIONS '98
COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ARCHIVES

The Rediff Special/ Amartya Sen

'The progress of culture, science and mathematics has greatly benefited from learning things across the borders'

I start with an elementary question: What kind of an animal is Westernisation? Like the blind men describing an elephant in the old Indian tale, different commentators tend to concentrate on different aspects of Westernisation. Some describe, as it were, the legs, others the trunk, and still others the tusk. But unlike the real elephant in that tale, it is not obvious that there is, in this case, a pre-existing concept of a total elephant, with legs and a trunk and a tusk around a body which together make up a whole. Westernisation, one can argue, is not at all like that -- it does not exist independently of our conceptualisation, and what we take the total animal to be is itself a matter of judgment.

I should put my own cards on the table. I believe the idea of Westernisation is used too readily and too uncritically in many of the contemporary debates to be helpful for serious cultural critique. The fear of Westernisation and its debilitating effects suffers from a number of distinct problems. First, there is the question whether any influence across the border is to be seen as dependence and whether anything taken from the west would then count as making a country Westernised.

If Westernisation is to be feared, we surely need an analysis that goes beyond the simple identification of the origin of a thing or a thought. The progress of culture as well as science and mathematics in the world has greatly benefited from learning things across the borders. Not to be able to distinguish creative influences from debilitating dependence on others would be a blinding mistake.

Second, given the historical interconnections between different cultures, it may be hard to determine what are the exact origins of particular ideas, or objects, or techniques. Very many different types of influences have come in recent years from the West to non-Western societies. Some are quintessentially European, like the English language, the French language, and so on. While others -- such as scientific knowledge or technology or cultural practice -- may be so mixed in their origin that it would be quite hopeless to try to determine from where they have originated.

Third, some of the generalisations about the contrast between Western and Indian conceptions of rationality and modes of thinking seem oddly naïve and simplistic. There are enough heterogeneities within each of these traditions to make such generalisations deeply problematic. I shall discuss these different issues in turn.

Amartya Sen, the world renowned economist, delivered this UNESCO lecture in Delhi, recently.

Back

Amartya Sen, continued

The Rediff Specials

Tell us what you think of this feature