Small BusinessImpartial spectator
Professor Amartya Sen tells us that his high school teacher’s advice, on whether he could get away with saying that Lord Krishna’s argument in the Gita was incomplete and unconvincing, was that “Maybe you could say that, but you must say it with adequate respect”. Following this advice, I write the review with the deepest respect for Professor Sen.
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Since 1979, when I attended Sen’s seminar with Dworkin and Parfitt at Oxford and heard them debate the frailties of Benthamite utilitarianism and the complexity of Rawls’ idea of justice and fairness, I wondered why Sen had spent so much time on these rather esoteric subjects. But now, 30 years later, having read this volume, I think I understand. In a globalising world, we are forced to interact with ‘others’ and interact in environments that are alien to our world view and outside our traditions. This necessitates understanding and respecting others’ notion of justice and fairness, and trying to bridge the differences. The attempt is to try and evolve a synthetic moral and ethical framework that reflects different perspectives, aspirations and compulsions of all those who today constitute the global village. This was not required in the past when we were safe and secure in our secluded milieus. Sen’s heroic effort has been to give us the intellectual wherewithal to reject the Huntington postulate that such multicultural and multiethnic interactions must necessarily produce clashes and result in inevitable domination of one by the other. Instead, Sen argues that we have evolved sufficiently to appreciate that the others’ framework, even when different from ours, can be internally consistent and coherent, and can co-exist with ours. This coexistence yields a society that resembles a mosaic and does not become either a melting pot that produces a bland uniform culture of uni-dimensional personalities, or degenerates into ethnic cleansing. The understanding which underlies this co-existence is derived from “public reasoning” (non-dogmatic argument), which produces a synthetic, syncretic and sometime even a synergistic environment that supports material progress and is more likely to generate a quest for the beyond. This emphasis on public reasoning naturally makes Sen a quintessential democrat. Consequently, he gives democracy an independent value in the estimation of welfare. I agree whole-heartedly. But having lived for nearly a decade in Confucian Asia, I am also aware of societies that are based on a quasi-voluntary social contract, which assures continuous improvement in material existence while eschewing democracy. Can we judge these social systems that have lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, to be inferior to democratic ones that condone dehumanising poverty?
Sen cites Adam Smith as saying that the interplay of different ethical and moral frameworks incorporating varying notions of justice and fairness, necessitates the existence of an “impartial spectator” who listens to distant voices for ranking different frameworks or synthesising them. But this puts us bang in the midst of a conceptual emergency, because the impartial spectator, herself adhering to a particular framework, can hardly be expected to distill a synthetic framework from these distant voices, which reflect unique and non-comparable moral frameworks. This conceptual emergency (the term coined by the International Futures Forum) can be handled only if we are prepared to adopt a post-enlightenment framework and go beyond linear causation and rationality that are rooted in materialism. We need to rise to a higher level of consciousness, which derives its sustenance both from materialism and spirituality. This higher consciousness equips us to listen to or connect with our ‘inner voice’ that becomes audible only when we achieve the connection or union (yoga) with the inner self, which is but a reflection (pratibimb) of the infinite within us. Having achieved the connection, we can understand and experience the miraculous and beautiful commonality in different moral and ethical frameworks, thereby becoming the “impartial spectator”. Krishna guides Arjuna to achieve the connection and attain the status of a Sakshi (witness) where the distinction between niti (process) and nyaya (outcome) disappears. For the self-realised, the journey itself becomes the rendezvous. Both Mahatma Gandhi and Einstein also referred to the inner voice for showing them the way forward.
Once connected with the inner self, Arjuna witnessed the Viraat (infinite) in which the past, present and the future all collapsed into one. However, this state can only be experienced and not intellectualised. This is emphasised by Shankaracharya in his Soundarya Lahiri, in which he refers to the human mind as the ultimate veil of illusion that must be crossed by those seeking to be a Sakshi, or the impartial spectator. Khusro’s immortal rendering, “Chaap tilak sab cheeni re, moh se naina milayke (all forms of material recognition are taken away once the union is achieved)”, captures the essence of being left bereft of all frameworks, and becoming the impartial spectator. I submit for Professor Sen’s consideration that by leading Arjuna to becoming a Sakshi, Krishna’s argument was complete, convincing and liberating as well.
The author is Director and Chief Executive of ICRIER[----------]
THE IDEA OFJUSTICE
Amartya Sen
Penguin-Allen Lane
468 pages; £20 (Rs 2,000)