Mamata steps into Amartya Sen-Visva Bharati row: What is the land dispute

The Visva-Bharati University (VBU) had in December 2020 named Sen in a list of illegal occupants on its campus in Santiniketan. Then in January this year, the university and Sen exchanged letters on the issue, after which the CM stepped in.

Banerjee also announced Z+ security for Sen. Without naming the Visva-Bharati’s Vice-Chancellor, she strongly criticised him, talking about the “saffronisation” of the university.

“I have been silently watching how an eminent citizen was being insulted all these days. I asked my officers to get the land records. I gave him proof that the land was transferred to his father in 1943. No man in the garb of the Bharatiya Janata Party should insult Amartya Sen. We look at Visva-Bharati through the eyes of Tagore, not through a saffron lens,” said Banerjee.

The land dispute

Visva-Bharati recently released a statement saying that “the information and documents shared with Prof Sen vide our letters dated 24-01-2023 and 27-01-2023 make it amply clear that 1.38-acre land was never leased to late Ashutosh Sen [Amartya’s father]. Only 1.25-acre land was leased to late Ashutosh Sen. Following the application dated 31-10-2005 (which was supported by probated will of late Ashutosh Sen and other documents), lease of only 1.25 acre land was mutated in his favour, for the residual period of lease tenure, as permitted by the Executive Council of the University in its meeting dated 03-09-2006.”

Amartya Sen’s maternal grandfather Kshitimohan Sen, a Sanskrit scholar of repute, was invited to Santiniketan by Rabindranath Tagore in 1908. He played a key role in building the Visva-Bharati — set up in 1921 — along with Tagore. Sen, born in 1933, was named Amartya by Tagore.

Amartya Sen’s house in Santiniketan, Pratichi. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

On the university campus, plots were given to many eminent persons on a 99-year lease since the time of Tagore. Sen grew up in Pratichi, the house built by his father, and visits it frequently.

Kshitimohan Sen was the second Vice-Chancellor of Visva Bharati. Sen’s father, Ashutosh Sen, was a professor at the university, and he purchased sections of the land at the centre of the dispute.

The recent letters from the university

Visva-Bharati authorities on January 24 issued a letter to Sen, asking him to hand over parts of the plot. On January 27, the university issued a second letter with the same demand.

“You are in possession of 1.38 acres of land which is in excess of your legal entitlement of 1.25 acres. Kindly return the land to Visva-Bharati as early as possible since the application of the laws of the land will cause embarrassment to you and also to Visva-Bharati which you endear so much,” read the letter dated January 27.

Amartya Sen’s reply

Sen wrote to Visva-Bharati V-C Prof Bidyut Chakraborty two days later, saying that his father had purchased the free-hold land from the market and not from Visva-Bharati, and they have been paying taxes for it.

He also sent a legal notice to the V-C, asking him to withdraw “your false allegation made to the news agencies that a plot of land owned by Visva-Bharati is unlawfully occupied by me.”

He further wrote in the letter, “To measure the area of our homestead, Pratichi, to compare with the long term lease of land taken by my father in 1940 from Visva-Bharati… This sudden abuse of an 80-year-old document is clearly a crude attempt at harassment or worse.”

He also said, “Among other errors it ignores the big fact, which I have stated many times (even in the context of this dispute), that a substantial amount of free-hold land was purchased by my father (in the market — not from Visva-Bharati) to add to our homestead on which khajna and Panchayat taxes are paid by me yearly.”

The politics around it

When the university first named Sen among illegal occupants in 2020, Mamata had backed the Nobel laureate.

After that, in August 2022, sections of the TMC were unhappy with Sen when he said he would not be able to accept the state government’s Banga Bibhusan award because he was out of the country, but accepted the Muzaffar Ahmad Memorial Prize at a CPM event weeks later.

However, this year, the party warmed up to him again after Sen said Banerjee had the ability to become India’s next Prime Minister. Soon after Sen’s interview, Banerjee, speaking to a news channel, responded, “Amartya Sen is a world-renowned intellectual. His insights show us the path. His advice is an order for us. His evaluation of the present situation of the country should be taken seriously by everyone.”

Just after Sen’s statement on Banerjee, the land dispute row flared up again, and the TMC claimed this was because “Sen became an enemy of the University as he praised Banerjee”.

The CM’s nephew and TMC General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee said, “The statement made by the Vice-Chancellor of Visva Bharati is extremely unfortunate. The main reason behind the move was that Amartya Sen had praised CM Mamata Banerjee. BJP leaders cannot accept this, which is why they are targeting him.”