The Intellectualizing Indian

Raju Korti
Twelve years ago a friend of mine gifted me Nobel Prize winner and Economist Amartya Sen's book "The Argumentative Indian. I read the book not because it was written by Sen but inspite of him. It is a collection of essays that discuss India's history and identity, focusing predominantly on the traditions of public debate and intellectual pluralism. Sen has exercised over 400 pages in demonstrating the importance of public debate in Indian traditions generally. I chose to give up half way through the book given its repetitive thought to understand contemporary India in the light of its long argumentative tradition.

Without belittling his stature, let me say that I was never into Amartya Sen. For that matter, I find most economists big time bores with their skewed thinking apart of course from the fact they have little else for public discourse. I found the book specious and imprecise because Sen does not travel beyond some postulates. It reads well in parts but there is something anorexic and superficial about it. The history that Sen seeks to lean on is as unscrupulous and trivializing as those that he wishes to bring down. That makes it less than thoughtful and instead serves as a forceful reminder that history runs the risk of being used in a dangerously naive way. 

This is not a review of Sen's book. My essay here has a tangential but parallel connection to Sen's argumentative Indian, of which he is his own advertisement. There is no denying that Indians are by and large noisily argumentative but in my view more than being argumentative it is their natural talent for "intellectualizing" issues. Social media serves as an ideal grazing ground on which intellectualizing becomes a cud to chew on. The most protuberant aspect of intellectualizing is it gives one the leverage of obfuscating the issue at hand while being perched on moral high ground. It is just camouflaged agenda that leaves no one any wiser.

Excessive thought and reading too much into issues that are simple and crystal clear are the main driving forces behind intellectualizing and obfuscating issues. It is the kind of defence mechanism that is counter-productive beyond a certain point but becomes a tool nevertheless to cloud issues that in their original form are transparent enough. The overdoing of intellectualizing seen today is often passed off as rationalizing. Intellectualizing degenerates clear thinking and its effects are palpably visible.    

Having bloody bare-knuckle arguments on issues one is passionate about is fine but abstracting issues and practicing mental gymnastics is what you see when opinions are flaunted around with what appears to be a generous sprinkling of intellect that incommodes plain thinking. It also has a burlesque side to it. People or issues intellectualized are often themselves surprised to know they are endowed with such an intelligent mind. I have many instances to share but I will share one. Director-actor Vijay Anand once told me that he realized the true measure and depth of his film Guide when people applauded him about many aspects of the film that had never crossed his mind. One of the consequences of intellectualization the "spirit" is lost and replaced by mind or intellect. It raises more questions than answers.

Intellectualizing is pitless and turns into a drag when it exceeds itself, which is more than often. Arguing is its eldest offspring. Some day, I shall write a book" The Intellectualizing Indian" without succumbing to the temptation to intellectualize it. The only trouble is you can't intellectualize it enough.