DEBATE & DISSENT, THE INDIAN WAY

INDIA is often praised for its spirituality, poetry, and devotion.

- MAMIDALA JAGADESH KUMAR

What is less known, and usually deliberately forgotten, is that it also built one of the world’s strongest cultures of reasoning.

Generations of Indian students have been taught that critical thinking began in ancient Greece, evolved in Enlightenment Europe, and entered India through English education. This version of history is incomplete and biased. India has always been a civilisation of questioning minds and debating scholars. Our schools, however, have not told this story.

For decades, Indian textbooks have associated rationality with Europe and tradition with India. They celebrate Socrates, Aristotle and Descartes, but rarely mention Gautama, Kanada, Nagarjuna, or Shankaracharya as logical thinkers. As a result, young minds grow up believing that logic is foreign to our soil. Worse, they assume that questioning authority is un-Indian.

Indian civilisation did not rely on unquestioning belief. It argued, debated, and demanded evidence. The country that produced yoga and ayurveda also developed powerful logic, epistemology, and debate systems. Centuries ago, Indian thinkers asked the same questions modern philosophy asks. What is truth? How do we know what we know? Can knowledge be verified? What is the difference between perception and reality? Far from being passive acceptors of tradition, Indian scholars built competing schools of thought that openly challenged one another. Disagreement was a respected intellectual practice. A short journey through India’s intellectual heritage makes this clear.