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Times Of India
Seven Indians among top 100 intellectuals
6 May 2008, 0216 hrs IST
WA****NGTON: An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself, said
French-Algerian writer-philosopher Albert Camus; turns out that
someone is keeping track of intellectuals too.
The latest issue of the influential Foreign Policy magazine has
identified the world's Top 100 "public intellectuals", in its second
such exercise, awarding America - and the United States - with more
cerebral heft than any other continent or country.
India comes out ****ning too. Besides familiar names such as Al Gore,
Noam Chomsky, Francis Fukuyama, Umberto Eco, Lee Kuan Yew, the list
has some half-dozen Indians: historian Ramachandra Guha, political
psychologist A****s Nandy, and environmentalist Sunita Narain, all of
whom live in India, among them.
Four other Indians based outside India also make the list:
Economist-Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, journalist author Fareed
Zakaria, novelist Salman Rushdie, and San Diego-based neuroscientist V
S Ramachandran.
Neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh have one name each in the Top 100
- lawyer-politician Aitzaz Ahsan and microfinance guru Mohammed Yunus,
while China has four.
Unmindful of the gibe by a former US vice-president Sprio Agnew that
an intellectual is a man who doesn't know how to park a bike, Foreign
Policy has parked for more than a third (36) of the worlds Top 100
eggheads in North America, most of them in the US.
Among them are two New York Times columnists, Thomas Friedman and Paul
Krugman. For the record, Agnew, who coined several alliterative
excesses such as "nattering nabobs of negativism" and "hopeless,
hysterical hypochondriacs of history," resigned from the vice-
presidency following charges of tax evasion and money laundering.
No one accused him of being an intellectual although he once
characterized a group of opponents as "an effete corps of impudent
snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals."
Foreign Policy also credits Europe, which has deep tradition of
intellectualism, with 30 names in the Top 100 - less than North
America - including Britons Niall Fergson, Ian Buruma and Christopher
Hitchens. The Middle East accounts for 11, and Asia 12, which means
India accounts for half of Asia's eggheads.
The list includes 17 political scientists, 15 economists, 12 each of
philosophers, scientists, and journalists, eight artists and
novelists, six each of historians, activists, and leaders, four
religious heads, and two environmentalists.
In defining the criteria for its selection, Foreign Policy said the
candidates, =93among the worlds most sophisticated thinkers... have
shown distinction in their particular field as well as an ability to
influence wider debate, often far beyond the borders of their own
country."
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