By the people, of the people, and for the people: In India, no issue is too small to be taken to the streets

Indians love to argue. Take our television channels, for example. They have built popular shows out of half-hour or one-hour public debates. Outside of the TV studios, walk by a tea stall, a street corner, or even a public park. You'll invariably find groups of people debating one issue or another: It could be the floods in Gujarat, Delhi's Metro, or the controversial community action in the shameful (alleged) rapes of Imrana and now Asoomi. What's most significant about this wonderful freedom of speech is that it is not the preserve of any single class or community. While the elite and the intelligentsia may dominate public opinion by virtue of controlling media, they by no means represent the popular opinion. Nowhere is this truth more evident than at the hustings, where poll projections are routinely way off the actual outcomes.

It is this India-where a billion opinions tug, push and jostle, sometimes violently so, but always within the framework of democratic traditions-that interests Amartya Sen. The Argumentative Indian, though, is not one long stream-of-consciousness narrative from Sen, winner of the Nobel Prize for economics in 1998. Instead, it's a collection of essays that he penned over the last decade. In his preface to the book, Sen explains his choice of the essays. "The selection of focus here," he writes, "is mainly for three distinct reasons: the long history of the argumentative tradition in India, its contemporary relevance, and its relative neglect in ongoing cultural discussions."

THE ARGUMENTATIVE INDIAN By Amartya Sen Allen Lane (Penguin Books) PP: 432 Price: Rs 650

Despite the subject's sharp focus, it's a broad brush that Sen uses to portray the country's argumentative psyche. He starts by examining the nature and pervasiveness of the dialectic tradition and the role it plays in not just maintaining but enriching the country's democratic fabric. The essays in the middle of the book are devoted to understanding how free speech shapes cultures, while those towards the end are broadly about how Indians are perceived by themselves and others.

Reading Sen's essays, one can't help but feel that Indians, despite their long history and rich tradition, have undersold their culture. Language, no doubt, has been a factor, but a bigger reason, as Sen points out, could be our enthusiastic willingness to see things from a "western" perspective. (The stick with which we were beaten into cultural subservience is, of course, the near-100-year rule by Britons, who, it can be argued, irreparably damaged the Indian self-confidence, if not pride.) In doing so, Sen seems to imply, we have fallen for the Western conspiracy. "One consequence of Western dominance of the world today," writes Sen in the essay entitled 'The Reach of Reason', "is that other cultures and traditions are often identified and defined by their contrasts with contemporary Western culture.... The West is seen, in effect, as having exclusive access to the values that lie at the foundation of rationality and reasoning, science and evidence, liberty and tolerance, and of course rights and justice."

The Argumentative Indian, then, is not just the reflections of one of the finest minds in the world today, but also a compelling reminder to the world of what makes India a vibrant democracy-despite its ragged poverty and seeming inertia. Sen's anthology is essential reading for anybody who hopes to understand India.

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE MYTH TO REALITY By Kshama V. Kaushik and Kaushik Dutta LexisNexis Butterworths PP: 257 Price: Rs 600

Ever since corporate America erupted in a wave of accounting scandals a few years ago, corporate governance has been the most hotly-debated topic in boardrooms. Corporations now realise that enhancing shareholder value isn't their only responsibility, protecting stakeholder (meaning customers, suppliers and the society at large) interests is as important. Small wonder, then, the subject of corporate governance has been controversial, both in India and abroad. The book, penned by a husband-and-wife team of chartered accountants, not only looks at the initiatives of various governments to improve the quality of financial reporting, setting of accounting standards, transparency in disclosures, but also the tasks before independent directors and audit committees.

Dutta and Kaushik (the former is a partner at Pricewaterhouse) raise some important ethical questions that must confront every CEO. For example, "Does Good Governance Translate into Better Business Sense?" The authors argue that although there is no clear correlation between ethical behaviour and better business (read: bottom lines), it still makes sense to be ethical. To reinforce their point, they cite a PricewaterhouseCoopers/Economist Intelligence Unit study, which shows that companies with better governance tend to perform better-in the sense that they have a higher return on assets and higher market valuations. Better financial performance, in turn, makes it easier for them to fund their operations. In hindsight, good corporate governance must seem like a no-brainer. But it has taken a wave of accounting scandals to galvanise corporates into doing something about it.

-Ashish Gupta

SECURITY DIMENSIONS OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE: INDIAN PERSPECTIVE By MVIRDC World Trade Centre Quest Publications PP: 92 Price: Rs 300

Ever thought that endemic poverty in any part of the world could be a ticking security time bomb for just about any country across the globe? Or how 9/11 impacted trade costs between India and the United States? Or security implications of India's large dependence on imported oil? These are exactly the issues that Security Dimensions of International Trade: Indian Perspective attempts to raise in the context of India's growing trade in goods and services.

The author, Professor Bisweswar Bhattacharyya (former dean of IIFT but now an academic at large) offers a simple reason why nations need to pay greater attention to trade security. He argues that peace and stability are what oil the wheels of global trade. Without them, costs for all countries would go up and, inevitably, impact world growth-like in the aftermath of 9/11. The book is less than 100-page big, but that's no indication of the rich information it packs in.

-Shailesh Dobhal