Is India going to collapse as a nation as Amartya Sen has observed?
Amartya Sen was born in Shantiniketan, Bengal, at Bishwa Bharti University campus where his grandpa Kshitimohan Sen was a teacher of Sanskrit and medieval Indian culture. Rabindranath Tagore named him Amartya. Tagore also named Indira Gandhi as Priyadarshini who studied in this campus briefly. Amartya Sen spent his childhood in Dhaka where his father Asutosh Sen was Chemistry professor at Dhaka University. As a child he saw infamous 1942 Bengal famine closely, where millions perished as British government stocked food grains for the commonwealth army in WW-II and it had a deep impact on him. His education started from St. Gregry school in Dhaka and high school from Pathabhaban in Shantiniketan. He did Economics graduation from Calcutta University Presidency College and moved to Cambridge where he did Ph.D. and finally, he became famous as Harvard professor. He lived in western countries for 5 decades and the best part is that he retained Indian citizenship. Throughout his life, his economic theory revolved around ‘social welfare economics’ which is leftist economics and that rewarded him Noble prize for economics in 1998.
The controversies started after Modi government came to power in 2014 as new government moved away from welfare economics policy followed by predecessor Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Dr. Manmohan Singh government. Let’s look at those controversies.
1. Praised welfare states.
Amartya Sen always praised welfare states like Venezuela, Sri Lanka, Kerala in India etc. but stopped praising them when Sri Lanka & Venezuela economy collapsed in quick succession (2016-2022) under welfare economics. Kerala is leftist state since independence where PM Nehru dismissed first democratically elected communist government. In India, there are 5 rebel states – Bengal, Punjab, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Nagaland where politics is not mainstream and tend to be leftist with freebie culture. Nagaland from the beginning refused integration with India and insurgency is going on since then by various Naga factions. The situation improved recently with a national party (read BJP) made inroads. Other 4 states are run by regional parties which promote leftist economic and sub-regional pride rather than national integration. Punjab and Bengal has highest per capita debt but a Sri Lanka type collapse in unlikely as India is a big country but these state’s economic development may slow down in future compared to other frontline states like Maharashtra, Karnataka and Gujarat.
Amartya Sen openly supports Mamata Banerjee government, consider her to be PM material and warned people not to select central government party (read BJP) before 2021 state election. He also said India will suffer if minorities specially Muslims are not treated well (read appeasement policy of UPA when MMS said Muslims have first right of national resources). When ‘Jai Shri Ram’ controversy started in Bengal and Mamata Banerjee used to get irritated with this slogan often and associated it with war cry of fanatic north Indian BJP slogan, Amartya Sen came to rescue of Mamata Banerjee saying ‘since childhood he never heard this slogan in Bengal’. This is a political game plan by regional parties to divide people in the strategy of ‘their God is different from our God’. In Bengal, we worship Goddess Durga, Kali, Saraswati etc. while north Indian worship God Rama, Hanuman, Shiva, Krishna, Ganesha etc. Similar tactics is used by DMK in TN to divide people saying Tamils are not Hindu, Cholas were not Hindu, and Lord Murugan is not Hindu!
Amartya Sen never criticised corruptions in Mamata Banerjee state government like ponzi scheme scams, cow, drug or fake currency smuggling, frequent localised communal riots, pre and post poll mob lynchings, illegal immigrations, minister Partha Chatterjee education scam etc.
Amartya Sen also supports Mamata Banerjee style of secularism and warned India will collapse in absence of certain appeasement policies! His father Asutosh Sen said that he will never leave Dhaka considering Dhaka University campus is safe for minorities and direct-action day Calcutta riot or Noakhali riot type pogrom will not happen in Dhaka. But he was wrong and had to leave Dhaka to save his life. Amartya Sen was deeply impacted by 1942 Bengal famine but never bothered about mass killing, rioting, forced conversion, violation of women’s honour by jeh@dis in east Bengal since Muslim League was formed in Dhaka in 1906. Hindu population reduced from 33% in 1901 to 8.5% in 2011 in east Bengal (also called east Pakistan or Bangladesh now). The ‘intellectuals’ of Bengal will never say against minority atrocities or ethnic cleansing in east Bengal which is much bigger in scale than 5 lakhs minority impacted in Kashmir since 1989 just for the sake of secularism.
Liberals will always glorify Kerala model and leftist leaders like Mamata, Stalin or Kejriwal
2. Nalanda University
UPA government inaugurated Nalanda University in Bihar in 2007 which got grants from various Buddhist countries like Japan. Amartya Sen was made the first Chancellor of the university because after getting Noble Prize, his ability to attract international students improved considerably. The University was different than normal Bangalore or Bombay University but rather planned similar to Shantiniketan type ‘open learning’ and hence financial autonomy was given to Amartya Sen. He did not even have to provide the account of money spent on anything to the government or justify his actions. During the 7 years (2007-2014), Amartya Sen team spent Rs 2730 Crore on a University which still was not fully functional. Since it was by law (made by UPA) exempt from any kind of accountability, no corruption charges or court cases can be made and how much money gone into individual perks out of Rs budgeted 2730 Crore will never became clear as no RTI request. Since UPA government was run by corrupt people and PM was mute spectator (most Indians consider PM Dr. Manmohan Singh is not corrupt), appointments made by Amartya Sen followed a JNU or Jadavpur University pattern of dominance of leftists or politically linked. They were - Dr. Upinder Singh (daughter of PM MMS), Anjana Sharma, Nayanjot Lahiri (a hardcore communist who claims never had any Nalanda post), Gopa Sabharwal and two guest faculties who draw salary sitting outside India - Daman Singh and Amrit Singh (both daughters of Dr. MMS). Amrit Singh works in New York for George Soros who recently (February 2023) criticised Indian PM Narendra Modi. Amartya Sen also linked with George Soros’s NGO Open Society Foundation which invested in Namati NGO.
In 2021, photographs of university infrastructure being built by the government was shared in media and that gave impression that at least money is being spent on infrastructure.
Amartya Sen regularly went to press criticising central government and warning people about central government
When PM Modi scrapped all these appointments in 2015, all hell broke loose. Amartya Sen started bad mouthing about PM Modi and he had lot of followers in Bengal. People were told how BJP PM Vajpayee never questioned Amartya Sen but Modi is a fascist. That time there was only a single building with 100 students but Modi government spent the money saved after removing Amartya Sen team by building a sprawling campus.
3. Misuse of free Air India rides
Amartya Sen Admired Vajpayee because he awarded him Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award immediately after he got Noble prize in 1998. This proves that Indian get recognition only when they get recognition abroad (Swami Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore are some other examples). Modi government is different and he is giving Padma awards to unknown/less known people who silently worked for decades for the betterment of the society.
Vajpayee government not just gave Bharat Ratna to Amarya Sen but also provided him lifelong free travel on government-controlled Air India (now given to Tata) national carrier. That time Amartya Sen clearly told the government not to underestimate his ability to use (or misuse) free Air India travel. Two decades later, it was revealed by RTI that Air India provided 21 free travels for Amartya Sen between 2015-2019 (4 years). The data from 1999-2015 must be much bigger may amount to Rs few thousand crores. This is the problem with Nehruvian nationalisation plan were everybody in government and close to government enjoys free ride at the cost of tax payer’s money. . This fits perfectly for Amartya Sen’s welfare economics policy where state provides freebies, freebies and more freebies. Bengal, Punjab, Kerala and Tamil Nadu politicians follow this model more than others and will continue to do so in future. Air India was taken from JRD Tata and returned back to Tata group 6 decades later with huge losses. The recent (February 2023) news is that Air India gave a jumbo orders for 250 + 220 jets to Airbus and Boeing which means it is on its path for revival. The deal was so big that USA President, French President and British PM made public statements about benefits of this deal.
4. Shantinekatan land dispute
This is the recent dispute where Amartya’s Sen’s father purchased 1.25-acre land in 1943 which was legalised or notarised. Bishwa Bharti VC started issuing letter in January 2023 stating Amartya Sen is actually using 1.38-acre land. Amarya Sen says since the house was small, additional land was procured but it is not clear if the additional purchase was legalised / notarised. Mamata Banerjee jumped into this fight and claimed that Amartya Sen was harassed by Modi government using Bishwa Bharti VC. This also explains why Mamata Banerjee some time back passed assembly legislation that state government will control appointment of state-controlled universities. Disputes like this will only benefit Mamata Banerjee in Bengal because she plays Bengali sub-nationalism card well and BJP can never play this card even if they talk about Swami Vivekananda, Subhash Chandra Bose, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee or Shyama Prasad Mookerjee. Mamata Banerjee can cover-up corruption, if any, by playing ‘intellectual Bengali’ card versus ‘uneducated cow belt, cow dung eating north Indians’ card by pushing Rabindranath Tagore, Amartya Sen etc. names into her criticism to Modi and BJP.
The land dispute made Amartya Sen sad and he commented that ‘Shantiniketan’ belongs to eminent people like Satyajit Ray and Nandalal Bose. But unfortunately, current Shantiniketan has changed. The land dispute if prolonged, will only benefit CM Mamata Banerjee as she will play victim card for Amartya Sen and try to move away voters from BJP led central government.
5. Family
Amartya Sen married three times, first one was Indian and the rest were westerners as he spent considerable time there. His current wife is rich and famous Emma Georgina Rothschild ‘is a member of the Rothschild banking family of England. So, he has influence in western country to encourage western media to write against Modi. A recent BBC documentary film against PM Modi’s role in 2002 Gujarat riot is making waves for Indian leftist and librandµs which appears to be funded by China. Amartya Sen can also do similar tricks.
His daughter Nandana Sen also made a controversial bold Bollywood movie ‘Rang Rasiya’ and disappeared from Bollywood just like actor Mandakini made a bold movie ‘Ram teri Ganga maili’ and disappeared from Bollywood. The film was stuck at sensor board for long time due to bold contents. Nandana Sen had a western upbringing and bold movie may not impact her reputation but it may impact his father’s reputation who is still part of Indian intellectual class.
Should Indian government consider seriously the suggestions made by eminent economists and Noble Laureates like Prof. Amartya Sen, Dr. Abhijit Banerjee, Kaushik Basu and Dr. Raghuram Rajan that government should focus on free spending policies, considering recent economic bankruptcy in Venezuela and Sri Lanka? A senior RBI official has said that people like Raghuram Rajan should not be considered as economist but a political rival. Similarly, Amartya Sen’s statement that India is going to collapse is just a political statement. He should be more concerned about plight of Hindu minority population in Bangladesh and economic recovery of Sri Lanka.
Picture source: Google / Respective rightful owner
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