Tolerance Chillies Idlis and Others

So a prof here had asked us to read Amartya Sen’s “Development as freedom” as a part of some course. I read through the book the other day .. conveniently skipping those parts of the books which seemed too scholarly or economistly to me…  thus defeating the purpose of the professor :P

I found this part of the book i.e., chapter10 on “culture and human rights” interesting. I think a lot of this is also seen in Sen’s “Our culture their culture” speech in 1995-96. This is about tolerance – interaction of cultures – globalisation etc. As always i quote paragraphs from the chapter it is up to reader to imagine the context :P

The Book

He says..

“The threat to native cultures in the globalizing world of today is to a considerable extent, inescapable. The one solution that is not available is that of stopping globalisation of trade and economies, since the forces of economic exchange and division of labor are hard to resist in a competitive world fueled by massive technological evolution that gives modern technology an economically competitive edge“

Totally agree! The more i read about the history of industrial revolution and technology in general .. the more i am convinced about how monstrous it is and how powerful it is. O technology! I bow down before thee! :P

“When an economic adjustment takes place, few tears are shed for the superseded methods of production and for the overtaken technology. There many be some nostalgia for specialised and elegant objects (such as an ancient steam engine or an old-fashioned clock), but in general old and discarded machinery is not particularly wanted. In the case of culture, however, lost traditions may be greatly missed. The demise of old ways of living can cause anguish, and a deep sense of loss“

I like this distinction between losing old machines and losing old traditions and customs. I think lost culture-traditions are far more closer to the heart than a lost typewriter. There was this fb pic that was floating around saying that “if you are born in the 80s then you are the last casette generation”. True.. but does that really make you feel sentimental? I don’t think so. But does the mention of lost knowledge systems of India make you feel sicker .. I think yes. When a very learned prof says .. “Europe had great philosophers in that age like aristotle, plato , socrates. India also had some during those times .. like.. aryabhatta.. no not him.. umm.. errr” .. You know something is wrong with your country :P. So i think lost culture is a bigger problem.

Sen says “…cultural nationalism or chauvinism can be seriously debilitating as an approach  to living”

Agree. But i think it is also important for people to be assertive about their roots/origins.

On that he says..

“Ways of life can be preserved if the society decides to do just that, and it is a question of balancing the costs of such preservation with the value that the society attaches to the objects and the lifestyles preserved” …

“What is crucial for a rational asessment of such choice is the ability of the people to participate in  public discussions on the subject”

Will the power wielding elite give so much freedom for the populace? Did anyone ever give so much freedom to the public? More importantly is it possible to have time bound resolutions on such things?

Chilly – Sine and others

He then goes on to say that .. “there are more interrelations and more cross-cultural influences in the world than is typically acknowledged by those alarmed by the prospect of cultural subversion”

“Chili may be a central part of Indian cooking as we understand it, but it is also a fact that chili was unknown to India until the portugese brought it there only a few centuries ago”

On a similar note .. I remember reading on IE long back about Idli’s Indonesian links. I was able to dig out that article from my 2007 gmail chat logs :P .. quoting from that article:

“Hindu kings from Indonesia, a country where fermenting is quite common, often came to India between the 8th and the 12th centuries, looking for brides. The cooks with them, suggested Achaya, brought the technique that changed the character of this breakfast delight”

“Among many foreign ingredients that are now indistinguishably Indian include the tomato, the potato, the chilli and the cabbage”

I remember in 2007 i wanted to buy Achaya’s book and didn’t buy .. I think now i should! (As i was typing i realised 5yrs is way too long a wait for any book on the to-read list..so i bought one of his books on flipkart ;) ).That apart.. i also find this other book interesting “Curry: A Tale Of Cooks And Conquerors” .. Added to the to-read list.

So i also did some more research on vegetables inspired by the article and i found this table. Very funny it is. I cross-checked some of the vegetables..and it is really inspiring to know how much we have globalised :P .. So protectionism doesn’t really make sense.. Ofcourse like Gandhi said (refer below) we shouldn’t be blown off our feet ;).

And Sen doesn’t stop there.. (Yes.. i am still on track.. this post was about Sen’s book ;) ) . He says..

“The image of regional self-sufficiency in cultural matters is deeply misleading, and the value of keeping traditions pure and upolluted is hard to sustain”

“..some chauvinists in India have complained about the use of “Western” terminology in school curriculum, for example in modern mathematics. But the interrelations in the world of mathematics make it hard to know what is “Western” and what is not. To illustrate consider the term “sine” used in trigonometry, which came to India straight through the British, and yet in its genesis there is a remarkable Indian component”

“Aryabhata, an Indian mathematician and astronomer who lived in the fifth and early sixth centuries, discussed the concept of “sine,” and called it Jyanardha, or “half-chord,” in Sanskrit. From there the term migrated in an interesting way, as Howard Eves describes in An Introduction to the History of Mathematics: Aryabhata called it ardha-jya (“half-chord”) and jya-ardha (“chord-half”), and then abbreviated the term by simply using jya (“chord”). From jya the Arabs phonetically derived jiba, which, following Arabic practice of omitting vowels, was written as jb. Now jiba, aside from its technical significance, is a meaningless word in Arabic. Later writers who came across jb as an abbreviation for the meaningless word Jiba substituted Jaib instead, which contains the same letters, and is a good Arabic word meaning “cove” or “bay.” Still later, Gherardo of Cremona (ca. 1150), when he made his translations from the Arabic, replaced the Arabian jaib by its Latin equivalent, sinus [meaning a cove or a bay], from whence came our present word sine

“We must not lose our ability to understand one another and to enjoy the cultural products of different countries in the passionate advocacy of conservation and purity”

No words :P .. But i think he chose a convenient example ;) .. nevertheless this is a fun fact :D

He then also talks about traditions of skepticism and tolerance in the east. He talks about how the only firmly agnostic religion in the world i.e., Budhism is of Asian origin and about how strong athiestic arguments were there in the Indian Carvaka/Lokayata school of thought and how even Ramayana had some arguments on the folly of religious beliefs.

All in all a very entertaining 22 pages these! :)

Gandhi’s words on this actually are amazing i think and hits the target bang on..

“I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the culture of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.“

Like i had vented out my frustration on this topic sometime back :P .. i think a lot of us in Modern day India are now okie with being blown off feet by the culture of other lands.. infact i know some who have a contempt for the culture of this land .. that is what irritates me :P.. Else i am in total agreement with all that Sen says ;)

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