Endgame with Gita Wirjawan - When Economy & Democracy Truly Serve Humanity - Amartya Sen

Episode Date: November 26, 2025

From math, Sanskrit, and epistemology, to freedom, justice, and democracy—Gita Wirjawan in conversation with Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen.English subtitles available.#Endgame #GitaWirjawan #AmartyaSen-----------------Nobelist Amartya Sen reads "What It Takes: Southeast Asia". You should too!BUY NOW:https://sgpp.me/what-it-takes-ytor get it at Periplus: https://sgpp.me/what-it-takes-periplus-----------------About the Guest:Professor Amartya Sen is a Thomas W. Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University. He won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1998, “for his contributions to welfare economics.”About the Host:Gita Wirjawan is an Indonesian entrepreneur and educator. He is the founding partner of Ikhlas Capital and the chairman of Ancora Group. Currently, he is teaching at Stanford as a visiting scholar with Stanford's Precourt Institute for Energy.-----------------Other Endgame episodes that you might like:https://youtu.be/_A6x_21ojD0?si=a7YIa...https://youtu.be/VHJwO13EqWE?si=ZURD6...https://youtu.be/Pg4w-rwTCXE?si=JyEc2...------------------

I've discovered something which was, aside from doing math, something about history of math. That is, there's a lot going on in India, claiming ancestry of mathematics in India from the Beazas and so on. But this is mostly nonsense. My grandfather used to say, tolerance is not enough. You have to work together. the big thing that happened in India, including Indian music, including the Taj Mahal, these are all mixed products of Hindus and Muslims, not exclusive products of either. Hi, folks, friends. We're so honored and happy to be graced by Professor Amartya Sint. Amartya, it's such an honor. Thank you for...

Thank you very much for coming and check. I want to pick up on your early childhood. You have stated frequently that you were under the influence of two personalities, one of which is Rabrinanath Tagore, and you were born in Shantini Keaton, and then the other one was your grandfather, the father of your mother. Talk about how those shaped your upbringing

until where you are today. Yeah. Well, in the last, because was the founder of the school, where I was later educated before being, after being born. But this is where my grandfather, his mother, my maternal grandfather taught. And my mother went to school. It's a very progressive school, and that had some influence on me. It's hard to think that 100 years ago my mother was learning judo in the school.

It was very co-educational and co-residential and so on. So that extent of progressiveness had some influence on me. My family was living in Dhaka, which is now capital of Bangladesh. But at that time, my father was a professor at Dhaka University. But I was born in Santinikatan, because quite often in those days, The first child of the couple tend to be born in the mother's home. I think there's a sociological reason. I think the family didn't trust the mother's family,

didn't trust the father's side to take adequate care of their daughter. So you tend to go home to the mother's side. So I went there back to Canton at the age of minus two months. That is, I was not yet born. And then I was there until plus two months. And then I went back to my father's family in Dhaka. And in Dhaka also had a strong influence. It was also my dad, also my paternal grandfather,

who was the judge and was very concerned with law. But I was very young, of course, at that time. But then the war started, and I was at that time in Mandalay, because my father was teaching his professor, but then from Dhaka, moved to visiting professor to Mandalay. This was in the early 40s when the Japanese started in the 30s. Yeah, I was born in 33, but in 35 or 36, early 36, we moved to Mandalay. And I remember Mandalay as a very beautiful town, even though I see that it meant to be a very dusty town.

But anyway, I went there, and we had a lovely house there in the campus. And then when the Japanese army had come into, what was moving towards Burma, and they have captured quite a lot of Southeastavia, my family, moved back to Dhaka and And I went to school in Santa Nicayatan and Robin Rans's ideas on which you ask me, is particularly his internationalism. That you never wish good to come only to your country. You want you good to come to the world.

That's to the strong feeling. that I cultivated. And we had a kind of global culture. I remember reading which was unusual then about the world in Africa, in Southeast Asia, East Asia, and the fan too. and in those days in the schools in India, you learned mostly the inferior British history,

the great land of the warriors and conquer and something about India. But we had learned something about Africa, a lot about Japan. I did even do some Vatik as a child. My mother was doing judo. And so we had a kind of international culture. So that internationalism overall held. And of course, a complete absent of religious sectarianism,

which was beginning to worry. India is a lot already. It's a big factor now, I think, unfortunately. And in that time, I was brought up in a way, secular, multicultural atmosphere. And my grandfather, who was a professor of Sanskrit, and he was a great transcriptist. And then for a while, I was,

helping Röven D'Art to go to run the institution. He was recruited by Röin Rath, by he was teaching in a, what used to be called in those days, a native kingdom on the Himal earth. But he was told by Röbindr that he had to come and join him, which he did. And, but he had also,

He was very interested in the, aside from his Sanskrit knowledge, he was very interested in the joint cultivation of cultural features between the Muslims and Hindus. So he was, he was, his big work at that time was about Kaviv. He was a Muslim poet, philosopher, but also Hindu too. There was a mixture in his thinking. And many years later, when penguin books asked him to do their penguin's official history, of Hinduism, which he did, but he knew a little English. He knew Sanskrit, Pali, Phaelik, Arabic, Persian, but not English. So I had to have him to translate it, including the chapters on Southeast Asia,

on Indonesia, how the cultural influences came both ways, But if you will remember, because of the temple, Hinduism and Buddhism, going from India, but they overlooked the fact that the Islam went to Indonesia from India. Absolutely. And in fact, many years later, when I visited Indonesia, and met someone who worked specially to indicate, how you can see from early history of Islam that it didn't come from there. Yeah.

It came from Guzad. Yeah. So anyway, so there was a kind of general atmosphere, broadness which was a big peasant in my life. I'm curious as to two things. First was the famine, 1943 and the second would have been the study of mathematics and philosophy okay the latter was that influenced by your father's being a chemistry professor and and how

did these two big episodes well I begin with mathematics maybe yeah no I was I discovered too much flavor maybe a little surprise already in school that I was pretty good as math. And I could solve it. And I was concerned then with foundational issues in mathematics. So on one side there was the attraction of Euclid, Phrythagoras, and so on. and they had a big impact on me. And the early Indian mathematics,

where my grandfather's Sanskrit scholarship helped, was interesting. And I soon discovered something which was, as I found, doing math, something about history of math. That is, there's a lot going on in India, claiming ancestry of mathematics in India from Du Bezos and so on. But this is mostly nonsense.

I think there were good mathematical fuzzled in one of the Vedas. Atherva Weda had a lot of mathematical puzzles which I liked. On the other hand, serious mathematics didn't really take over the country. until influences came from Babylon and Greece. And during second, third, fourth century, AD, these influences become very strong. And Ayyavat, who was a young prodigy then, moved in that direction.

And then many years later, I got the Nobel Prize. They had to give me, they gave me a choice for the Nobel Museum to get two objects connected with wildlife. And one was Ayurabad's book from 499 AD, and the other was my bicycle, on which I collected data connected with famine and gender discrimination and so on. And that, by the way, the bicycle,

If you go to the museum in Stockholm now, I'll check it up. Do you see that hanging from the feeling? It's what does it call the Amarthea bicycle? Pardon? What is it called? The Amarthea bicycle or? No, I don't know what it is called.

But I saw an Indian newspaper at the time to India. The journalists went there. He said the last thing I expected to see entering the Nobel Museum It was an old at-class Bengali bicycle hanging from New. But anyway, so Ayyavat turned Indian mathematics around. He was one of the major figures in trigonometry. He was also an enormously important scholar. important color about sound, about the eclipse being caused by the earth's shadow over the moon,

about the moon obscuring the sun, all the things. And so he was, and he talked about gravity. He is convinced Ayyabat in 500 BC, 580, that the earth was spinning around its thing, which is why the sun seemed to rise and fed. But it's not that the sun is going around. And he was asked, there was an Iranian mathematician who wrote in Arabic He asked Ayyabat followers that, how do you reckon the fact that if it's spinning, why doesn't they get thrown out? This is a chap called Al-Biruni, who was a mathematician himself, but went to India to study mathematics.

But when he was there, he asked that question, and to which the followers of Ayurabat said, well, our head of the school in the Ayyamat believes because every object fills every other object to itself. And earth being a large object prevents from you and others being thrown out because we are hooked to the earth

through gravity. A thousand years before Copernus He did, yeah, that's right. And so, by the way, Alvallarini is a very interesting figure. Oh, yeah. Because he, the one of Ayurv had followers, Goma Gupta. You see, Alvalli was 11th century. His big book called The History of India,

Tadik Al-Hind, was 1010 AD. Ayyabat was about 500 AD. And in between came Bruma Gupta, whom Alvaryne says in that period was the best mathematician in the world. On the other hand, he was a timid man. So when the religious Orthodox questioned Ayurabat about all this earth and the moon, rather than the earth, moving the sun going around the earth. Ayurabhat denounced that,

said that's not the right sign. But Bermagpta, who, according to Alvaryuni, may have been a better mathematician, but lacked courage. And he agreed with the religious orthodoxy and said, Ayurabat is mistaken. And then Alvallinin 10, 10, 80, asked the question, which I called in my book, that if you think that Ayurabhat was mistaken, and Vamha Gupta, who learned in mathematics, Romani Gupta, would like to denounce him, why do you, Rwamha Gupta, when it comes to calculating, predicting the eclipse that glow and trace the shadow of the earth,

moving around the moon, and the movement of the moon around the sun obscuring. Why is it that on one side you chastise Ayurpta from going, extending off against orthodoxy, and yet use their mathematical level. method in prediction. And it's interesting because Al-Bavirini, of course, with the devout matron. And he, in fact, dedicate the book as often to the memory, to the obedience to Allah. And yet he is arguing against orthodoxy in favor of Ayyabad in that. So I would very

involved in that history and that was possible because aside from being fairly good in mathematics I also was good at Sanskrit so I could read what was going on between them so that's so my mathematics at that time had bought something of my good luck in having mathematical skill, as well as knowing Sanskrit very well. Al-Biruni was part of the Baikal Hikma, the House of Wisdom, that was a manifestation of the Islamic Renaissance

during the Abbasid Empire from the 8th until the 13th centuries. Yeah, but he is 10, 80s. Correct, but it dated between the 8th century and the 13th century and 13th. Yeah, but he was the pioneer of that. Yeah. Yeah. The number zero, so it came from India.

Yes, but you see, I think the Alvary when he discusses the Indian community and the scientist. You, from his book, I think, by the way, is one of the best books written about India, written before William the conquer, conquered

written. He's written 10, 10, 18. But among other things, he has, he says that, can I spend 10 years in India now? I like their mathematics. I like their philosophy. But I have to say,

and I tell that to my Indian friend, they are better than any other nation in the world. in speaking eloquently about subject on which they know absolutely nothing. And he said Indians can be given many credit for maths and so on,

but this is, in my opinion, the highest achievement of the Indian. Now, I'll bring a book in a terrific book. Marti, I want to move forward a little bit on your two seminal pieces. First one was about freedom. Yeah.

This was in 1999. One year after you won the Nobel and the second one was about justice. Talk about those. Well, the idea of freedom is at one level a very difficult concept. At another level, a very easy one. because something illness child knows that being free is something of value even then, namely to go against what your parents are asking you to do and you want to do something else.

And that's very important. And I think the idea of freedom comes very early in our life. And I think if you look at the traditional thoughts in India, at one level, freedom is not valued because of rules, regulation, customs, and compulsions. At another level, people are always questioning their beliefs. For example, in the big Hindu text which shares the name with you, namely Gita, in the Bhagwata, part of the Mahavah, there's a good side and there's a bad side.

And the good side is about to weigh the war, which would make them displace the bad, evil side. And there, Krishna, what is the kind of holy figure, is the charioteer of the great hero on the good side of Arjuna. And he says that you have to go and fight and lead the side to victory. And he then asked the question, and that's in Wagoad Gita too. Right. Why should I kill people who have done me no harm? They are just in the army on the other side.

They have done no harm to me. Why can it be my object to kill people who have done no harm to me? And they go on arguing. Now, eventually in the Gita itself, that's what Bhagwagghar, in Mahabha, is shown that the Kyiqa is shown that the... Krishna win and persuade Ardune to go and fight and win. And the other hand, his question to remind, and in fact, the Marlava, if you forget, Gila and proceed, it ends with a kind of desolate country after the war where there are cremations going on everywhere

for dead soldiers. And there's tragedy all around. And even though the good side wind, the ethic Mahavharic ends in a tragedy. And eventually they all die. So there was a freedom of thought in the rebellious thinking. And one of the reasons why

my grandfather was such a follower of Kravil and the others there like Dadu and so on was that Kravil was saying the same thing namely in your devotion to God bear in mind that you will have to take your own decision and you need freedom for that And I found in terms of political history, that to take a jump, that freedom has been possibly the biggest constituent of progress in the world. And even in terms of you were mentioning the Islamic history.

But if you think of, for example, the great Muslim civilization in Cordova in Spain, is run by a Muslim king and a Jewish prime minister called Safruth. And it's a combination of a Muslim and a Jew that generates the early civilization and somebody asked the question

is there something in Koldova which is more admirable than in Babylon and the answer

is yes in many ways so there is a kind of diversion to freedom and seeing it

as an object objective as well as a good way of conducting your life. This had a big influence in my thinking in the early days. Bhagavad Gita talks about Dharma, Bhakti and spiritual... I know, that's the... You see, this is the interesting point. Vagavaghtiata is wanting the thought of diversion

over the far of knowledge. Correct. Whereas Arjun, the rebellious figure in Bhagwagita, is always saying, knowledge is more important than Vakti, than devotion. And so that is the battle between them, between. In Arjuna's mind. Between, yeah, between devotion versus knowledge.

And I, if there's something I got from my, my from the governorate to go, but also my grandfather was the fact of knowledge. Right. It was a part of devotion. Devotion has never particularly thrilled me. Yeah. You have to know that.

I'm with you. You at some point or at several points refuted the Lee hypothesis. Talk about that. which Lee is that? Lee Kuanu. Lee Kuanu. Well, Lee thought... It's relevant to some of us in Southeast Asia.

Just to understand your... He thought that Eastern culture had something which was better than the Western culture. And he thought that discipline. You see, the usual argument, I think, mistakenly, was often about the West emphasizing freedom and the East emphasizing discipline. Now, my first combat with Likwan Yu was on that subject. And I thought that in the Eastern civilization

in India, in China, in Southeast Asia, and even in Japan. At the time of the Constitution of 18 articles in 600 AD, were emphasizing freedom as much and more importantly than the West World, when Agwa, the Moral Kingdom was lecturing in Agra on the need for freedom and tolerance of different people's perspective. This is the time that in Rome they were still continuing to burn heretics in Thampodi, Fury. And it's very shocking. So I thought I wrote an article with the Guardian.

I think probably called what Lee Kwan-Yew does not know about the eighth year. He was quite angry about that. But when I landed in Singapore to give a talk, somebody came and told me that Likwan Yu would like to see me if I could come there. So I said, well, in that case, I'll come there. So I did go there. He was very, very kind to me. And then I came to know something about him,

for which I'm full of admiration even now. As India has gone down, the part of intolerance, as it is now, and a majoritarian culture, which ignores the presence of India has. more Muslim than any country other than Indonesia. And it's complete head to head with Pakistan. The thing that was totally important in liquid news mine is multicultural assimilation.

And I think Singapore is an extremely good example of what can be done. And I could feel also that his admiration for this change, as opposed to freedom, was based I think on the wrong hypothesis but based on

the objective of having a country, namely Singapore, which integrate Muslims, the Chinese, Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians. And I found very fine impression of him.

And every time I've been to Singapore, I've had an invitation from Likwun you to come and visit him. And even on one occasion tell me not to travel in a helicopter. I said, why? He said, because it's very dangerous. I never traveled in helicopter. And I have followed him. And I have had, I've actually lost a friend.

on a helicopter. And they're dangerous. Ligranew was right. There's only one engine. And it failed. You dropped like a stone. There's no contingency. There's no contingency plan.

No. But anyway. So I also have a copy of a book by Singapore Story. By Likranew with and very proud of it staying to O'athia

with regards and admiration and very, very proud of it. So, we disagreed. And in many ways, I still disagree. I saw him last time shortly before his death. But I think he was a

great figure. And if there's one person from which India today, with its intolerant, growing intolerant of the present government ought to do is to learn from the equation, not about discipline over freedom, but about tolerant and multiculturalism. Yeah. How do you remedy situations where witnessing a number of large democracies? priding themselves only in the context of distributing power to the hands of many,

but not doing well in distributing public goods, including welfare, health care, and the life. I know. I've said about it as clearly you are. No, I agree with that. And that, you see, if you think about the, if you think about the time when each, well, then it's horizon. top of the horizon. The time there, when the Muslim civilization was at its feet, it was a very tolerant thing.

I gave the example of Safoot, the Jewish. Oh, yeah. Jewish Christian. The Jewish prime minister to a Muslim king with the Muslim emperor. Similarly,

they were more tolerant in period of Christianity when it came in. Similarly, you get progress in the world to say, innovation of printing. What was a collaborative effort, it is. The first printed book in the world was a Chinese translation of a Sanskrit book.

The Sanskrit book, which I read in Frank, is called Badrachi. The Dekapha Pramata Sutra is known in English as Diamond Sutra. And the Chinese trends, the Chinese, Korean and Japanese, all Buddhist engineers and mathematicians were working on getting to printing first. And the Chinese got there first in 868 AD. And the book they translated, the work the printed, was the Chinese translation of the Sanskrit book called Valdosedika Fadna Faramita.

And the translation was done by a man, Kumajiva, who was half Indian and half Turkish. So it's the kind of global civilization, integration, and the arrival of print chain made China the great country of knowledge and education as it became. And nearly all the focus could be traced by this time of integration. They didn't say why a Sanskrit book. Why is it after all a Buddhist book? Why that?

Why done by a Turk and Indian? They just wanted that. And as the Diamond Sutra itself says that, often you will run into contrary ideas. But if you reject them, ungranted their country, they will be making a mistake. The first printed book in the world is dedicated. What is the dedication in 868 as he read?

It says, printed in memory of my parent for universal free distribution in the world. That's how the first book came to the world. And there is something to learn about freedom, integration, working together, not only tolerant, My grandfather used to say, tolerance is not enough. You have to work together. Absolutely.

The big thing that happened in India, including Indian music, including the Taj Mahal, these are all mixed products of Hindus and Muslims. Not exclusive products of either. Taj Mahal was in the memory of Mama Tadmaha whose son, Dharuqo, was the first translator of the Upanishad from Sanskrit to, in his case, Iranian, from which the German, British, English, and other translation happened. So all that gives me a conviction, which is, Like my belief in other things I admire, it's strong.

Marta, I'm sensitive of time. I'm going to ask you two more questions, tiny questions. I have to be quick. Okay, maybe just one. I want to pick up on your references to distribution and freedom. We have seen abundance of economic capital. But it didn't follow with democratization of economic capital. And we have recently seen abundance of intelligence through artificial intelligence.

Yeah. But I'm a little concerned that at the rate that we have not democratized economic capital, we have not democratized labor on the back of robotics, are we likely to continue seeing a trend of intelligence, not being democratized despite abundance. As a result of democratization. I think the, and I think you were also, it came up earlier in our conversation.

I think there have been some weakening of concerns about giving everyone equal both. So I think democracy is the big clue to the future. But you have to understand what democracy is. It is on one side, equality, equal voice. Another side is a commitment to give people distributed resources in a way that everyone can do what they freely choose to do.

But there is also lack of... of sensitive, lack of knowledge. I would very distaste to read in today's paper in New York Times that Indian comedians who make fun of the ruling government will have a very bad time by violent arrest, by violent, of addition and so on.

And that's not a way to build a great society. I know that India is not the only country to have this problem. Unfortunately, that makes it even more important than my country and yours and all of Southeast Asia, which has such a long history of tolerance behind it, should do that. So I think I'm glad that we are ending on the note of emphasizing democracy, equality, and freedom.

And these are the values at the age of 92, as I will become next one. You do well. I continue to cherry, continue. continue to advocate and continue to regard as the best things in life. So it's very, yeah, you have. One small one. What's your advice to the young generation in order to be well educated?

Not be guided only by others. Learn from others, but don't be guided by them. You have to decide what is it you want to do. And it often you find that what you learn from others may have better use than they can think of. And this is like you mentioned AI, but that applies to AI too. Because through AI we can get many things done.

But we shouldn't leave it in the hands some inanimate object to determine which way we should go. So freedom combined with learning. Combination is what I would place before. Young, young, but they're young. But also tell them they have to judge my own statement on this in the same way does it shit, thinks that they can argue for and argue with reason in favor.

That's the point I think I am, and I have been for decades now, and not likely to change at this moment. Okay, very good to have a chance of talking with you, Gita. Likewise, somewhat, yeah. Thank you. Donovan. Sophia, such an honor. Thank you.