A glorious work with just the right tone

I have been going through a great book recently. One of the best that I have read by a liberal left-wing intellectual for a while now. Mr. Amartya Sen is a nobel laureate and is well-known for his work in economics. What a large group of folks do not know is that he is a prolific writer( hard not to be, as an economist I guess).

We tend to opine that democratic institutions have been built up in India by the grace of the British occupation. Mr. Sen goes on to explain that a society which was always inclusive, at least giving living space of sort or other to people within the caste system had to build up its own order of social binding. This order also needed to be independent of the rulers of the time. This nascent idea was at the forefront when the Indian Independence pioneers talked of freedom and democracy. Do read

The Argumentative Indian by Amarya Sen