ARGUMENTATIVE INDIANS PODCAST

SPEAKER
Sagarika Ghose has been a journalist for over three decades, starting her career with The Times of India, subsequently moving to Outlook magazine and The Indian Express. She has been a primetime news anchor and has also worked as Consulting Editor, The Times Of India. She is also a political commentator on the news channel ET Now. Ghose is the author of the best selling biography of Indira Gandhi, "Indira, India's Most Powerful Prime Minister." She is the author of the recently published theoretical work, “Why I Am A Liberal”

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We invite thought leaders from across the ideological spectrum. The guests in our sessions express their independent views and opinions. Argumentative Indians does not profess to subscribe, agree or endorse the same or be in anyway responsible for the stance, words and comments of our guests.

Chandrachur Ghose
An author, researcher and commentator on history, economics and environment. Ghose has also co-authored Conundrum: Subhas Bose’s Life After Death, which features among the bestsellers in Amazon. Ghose is one of the founders of the pressure group Mission Netaji that has been the moving force behind the declassification of secret documents related to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. His activism led to the declassification of over ten thousand pages in 2010.

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DISCLAIMER:
We invite thought leaders from across the ideological spectrum. The guests in our sessions express their independent views and opinions. Argumentative Indians does not profess to subscribe, agree or endorse the same or be in anyway responsible for the stance, words and comments of our guests.

Almost 200 years after being outlawed, the practice of Sati still looms large over every academic discourse about Hindu philosophy and customs. It remains a potent symbol of deep-rooted patriarchy and cultural misogyny of pre-modern India. Time and again the banning of Sati has been invoked to argue that British colonialism helped bring a regressive Indian society out of the dark ages. Even for contemporary Indians, who are proud of their heritage and culture, Sati Partha poses a strange predicament. How did a civilisation so advanced in science and philosophy, that produced great thinkers through the ages such as Mahavira, Gautam Buddha, Kabir Das, Adi Shankara, and many more oddly remained comfortable with a practice so barbarous? With so many glorious periods under numerous Indian dynasties from Guptas to Vijayanagara, Mughals to Marathas, why did India need a foreign  mercantilist power to ultimately put an end to this cruel and inhuman custom? 

It is important to address these questions as they play a key role in how we Indians see ourselves as a people. Were our ancestors really as backward and superstitious as we are told? And did India really need the enlightened Victorians to free her from its social evils?  

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DISCLAIMER:
We invite thought leaders from across the ideological spectrum. The guests in our sessions express their independent views and opinions. Argumentative Indians does not profess to subscribe, agree or endorse the same or be in anyway responsible for the stance, words and comments of our guests.

There is a widely-held view that places of learning should remain ‘free of politics’ and hence academics should stay politically neutral. Usually neutrality implies academic silence in political debates, which can sometimes have immense social, economic, environmental and public health consequences. The advocates of this neutrality argue that it’s the best course to ensure no section of students is alienated and their education is not compromised. 
 
But can places of learning remain ‘free of politics’ when what they teach is itself determined by political instead of academic considerations? In Indian universities from the textbooks to the curriculum to the policies for selecting faculty to the code of conduct for students - everything is political and ideologically-informed. 

Dante, the famous Italian poet, writer and philosopher once said “the darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.” Should a professor of Science remain neutral when a government-backed quack denounces modern medicine in the midst of a pandemic? Is it possible for professors of History to not take a stand on the growing demands from India’s far right to revise history? Can a professor of Constitutional Law remain silent in the face of the current Hijab row? Should a professor of international relations not share his opinion if Russia invades Ukraine?

And more importantly, is silence in the face of political upheaval and social turbulence still neutral? These are some of the questions posed by those who root for academics to openly air their views. However, in today’s hyper-polarized political climate speaking up can have serious consequences. It may entangle an academic in a public controversy they are not equipped at navigating. Further it could alienate some of their students and coworkers. At best it may prove to be a temporary distraction from their research and teaching, and at worst it may result in highly adverse life-changing career outcomes. Many are therefore reluctant to intervene even when they have valuable information and well founded opinions to contribute to a debate. 

But is the job of academics only to prepare students to pass exams, obtain degrees and become employable? Do they not have a bigger role to play in society? Especially as we witness rampant misinformation and general confusion should it not be a moral and professional obligation for academics to speak up and not leave the important political discourse “to those who benefit from it”? 

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DISCLAIMER:
We invite thought leaders from across the ideological spectrum. The guests in our sessions express their independent views and opinions. Argumentative Indians does not profess to subscribe, agree or endorse the same or be in anyway responsible for the stance, words and comments of our guests.

Explore More at - www.argumentativeindians.com

DISCLAIMER:
We invite thought leaders from across the ideological spectrum. The guests in our sessions express their independent views and opinions. Argumentative Indians does not profess to subscribe, agree or endorse the same or be in anyway responsible for the stance, words and comments of our guests.

A conspiracy theory is an idea that a group of people is working together in secret to accomplish evil goals. 

Such theories are nothing new but it seems now they are no longer limited to the periphery of society. They've become powerful forces mobilising and locking millions into a common, warped belief system. From Holocaust deniers to those who believe the NASA moon landing was staged; from believers of Illuminati to those who dismiss  Evolution or refute Climate Change, followers of Conspiracy Theories are not only victims of but also active propogators of misinformation across the world. 

During the early stages of the current pandemic, we saw the internet flooded with elaborate speculations around the virus, from theories of international bio-warfare to those arguing that the virus was a hoax. While most people dismiss such unfounded theories as harmless noise, they seem to capture and sustain the attention of significant number of people. This group doesn’t just believe in, but clings on these theories even when they defy logic, are contradicted by available evidence and are dismissed by experts and the mainstream society. 
This is not a subject for amusement, as belief in such theories can have dangerous consequences, as observed last year in the mob violence on Capitol Hill or the multiple incidents of lynchings in India triggered by viral WhatsApp messages. 

How to deal with this? How to prevent people from falling for them? How to reason with someone fixated on an obvious conspiracy theory?

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DISCLAIMER:
We invite thought leaders from across the ideological spectrum. The guests in our sessions express their independent views and opinions. Argumentative Indians does not profess to subscribe, agree or endorse the same or be in anyway responsible for the stance, words and comments of our guests.

Explore More at - www.argumentativeindians.com

DISCLAIMER:
We invite thought leaders from across the ideological spectrum. The guests in our sessions express their independent views and opinions. Argumentative Indians does not profess to subscribe, agree or endorse the same or be in anyway responsible for the stance, words and comments of our guests.

When William Jones, a British Orientalist, discovered striking commonalities between Sanskrit and European languages, it pointed to common or shared ancestry between Indians and Europeans. This led to immediate conclusions that India was the “cradle of civilisation” and Sanskrit, the “mother of Indo-European languages.” 

However, with the rise of European imperialism and emergence of racial superiority ideas in the nineteenth century, the narrative changed. Europeans began to see  themselves as undertaking a mission of civilising the “inferior” peoples of Asia and Africa, or assuming “the white man’s burden”. Hence, India could no longer be the ‘cradle of civilisation’. In this context, an alternative explanation was offered for the shared linguistic ancestry. The theory proposed was of an ancient invasion of India by an advanced people from the West, who called themselves “Aryas” (as they do in Mahabharata), and brought with them a great language and a sophisticated philosophy, which went on to become Sanskrit and Vedas respectively. This made the British invasion of India look like just another “Aryan wave”, bringing with it culture and learning. 

The narrative was problematic from the very beginning, as there was little to no evidence to support it. In the twentieth century the theory of “invasion” was conclusively discredited, but this still left the question of shared linguistic ancestry unanswered. The most commonly offered explanation today is that while there was no invasion, there was most likely a gradual “movement” or “migration” of these Aryan people into India.

This still implies foreign roots for Sanskrit and Vedas, making the theory anathema to Indian nationalists, who see Sanskrit and Vedas as the foundational pillars of Indian civilisation and culture. While many respected scholars have submitted credible challenges and offered alternative explanations to the migration theory, that legitimate academic debate has been overshadowed by the political controversy now surrounding it. In the absence of sufficient archeological evidence, several genetic and linguistic studies have been undertaken in recent years, but the findings are often obfuscated by exaggerations, distortions and outright misinformation. 

The aim of this session is to demystify this fascinating part of Indian history - deconstructing the research findings and separating fact from fiction.

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DISCLAIMER:
We invite thought leaders from across the ideological spectrum. The guests in our sessions express their independent views and opinions. Argumentative Indians does not profess to subscribe, agree or endorse the same or be in anyway responsible for the stance, words and comments of our guests.

American hegemony in the world has been formidably challenged in recent years by China. Beijing’s rapid technological progress, breakneck defence buildup, expanding space program, increasingly assertive actions in South China Sea and the Indian Ocean, the humongous Belt and Road Initiative and China’s leadership in the creation of the world’s largest trading block RCEP, reveal its aspiration to modify the international system to its advantage. Washington however is determined to prevent China from having a free reign in reshaping the global order. It has announced it would provide nuclear submarine technology to Australia, with the prospect that its submarines could pop up, undetected, along the Chinese coast. The last time US shared that kind of technology was in 1958, when Britain adopted nuclear reactors to counter the Soviet Union. United States has strengthened its informal alliance with Japan, Australia and India under the QUAD forum, augmented its naval exercises in South China Sea, And has extended moral and arms support to Taiwan. All of this forms part of a direct counter to China! 

In Oct this year, CIA announced that it had created a new China mission center to position the United States to confront “the most important geopolitical threat we face in the 21st century, an increasingly adversarial Chinese government.” Earlier in the year President xi jinping declared in July that those who get in the way of China’s ascent will have their “heads bashed bloody against a Great Wall of steel.” These statements sounds eerily similar to the rhetoric common during the Cold War. 

Kevin Rudd, the former Australian prime minister and longtime China expert, this year told a German newsmagazine that a Cold War between Beijing and Washington was “probable and not just possible”. 

The text book definition of COLD WAR is a state of political hostility between countries characterized by threats, propaganda, and other measures short of open warfare.

Based on what we are witnessing right now between US and China, would it be fair to say that the world is entering a new cold war?

To answer this we have with us, the long time International Affairs editor at the Hindu, Dr Stanly Johny. 

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DISCLAIMER:
We invite thought leaders from across the ideological spectrum. The guests in our sessions express their independent views and opinions. Argumentative Indians does not profess to subscribe, agree or endorse the same or be in anyway responsible for the stance, words and comments of our guests.

The unusual buildup of Russian troops near Eastern Ukraine has drawn fears of an imminent Russian #invasion of #Ukraine. While strongly denying such claims, Russia has admitted that its relations with the US and #NATO have approached a “dangerous point”.  Russia has called for immediate talks with the US, ahead of which it has put forth a tough list of demands. These include that NATO deny membership to Ukraine and other ex-Soviet countries and roll back the deployment of troops and weapons in central and eastern Europe. US is unlikely to acquiesce and has announced that it will be coming out with a set of counter demands. If diplomatic talks fail, tensions could quickly escalate.

India wants to retain its strategic autonomy and pursue independent relations with each of the great powers. But this has become difficult with the resurgence of hostility between the West and #Russia.

India cannot afford to alienate Russia, it’s most important #defence partner, especially not when India is dealing with heightened security concerns posed by an increasingly aggressive China. In the past, India has shown understanding towards Russia’s concerns in Ukraine, such as by voting against a Western-backed #UNresolution in 2020 on #humanrights violations in Crimea.

But many observers point out that India would not be able to easily look away if Russia invades Ukraine, an important trading partner to India. As a leading democracy, India would be expected to condemn the illegal occupation of a fellow democracy, and the accompanying human rights violations. More so India’s western partners would insist on its cooperation.

So far India has tried to remain neutral and called for a constructive dialogue among all stakeholders. However if the crisis snowballs, India might be pressured into taking a stand. Who will India choose - it’s key strategic partner, the US or its long-time friend Russia? How can India walk this diplomatic tightrope without alienating either side?

In this event, Padma Shri Kanwal Sibal will discuss with us the diplomatic complexities of this challenging situation for India.

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DISCLAIMER:
We invite thought leaders from across the ideological spectrum. The guests in our sessions express their independent views and opinions. Argumentative Indians does not profess to subscribe, agree or endorse the same or be in anyway responsible for the stance, words and comments of our guests.