‘Organised thrusting of smallness’: Amartya Sen warns of ‘weakening secularism’ in India
Addressing a Kerala govt conference, the Nobel laureate acknowledged a shift in his lifelong optimism, noting that while secularism remains strong in Kerala, it faces a ‘threat’ in other parts of India.
Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen. (File Photo) Well-known economist and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen said on Sunday that his confidence in the invulnerability of secularism in India has weakened.
Addressing an international conference on development and democracy, organised by the state planning board, Sen said: “As I grew older, I asked myself whether I have been able to hold on to the ideals that I had strongly held as a young man. I feel not all of them. I must acknowledge the weakening of my confidence in the invulnerability of secularism in India. The future of secularism depends on whether we can resist the well organised thrusting of smallness on this country,’’ he said in the online address to the inaugural session.
Sen, who had played a critical role in popularising the Kerala model of development, hailed the state’s achievements in human development indices.
He said his optimistic expectation regarding human development did not go wrong. “Things have been as I hoped. But I would have been happier still if we could add to that also the safeguarding and further advancement of secularism which has remained strong in Kerala, but weakened in India. We have to see whether Kerala can make a definitive contribution to India as a whole.’’
Recalling the days of Kerala formation in 1956 and the subsequent Assembly election which witnessed the Communists getting power in the state, Sen, who was in Kolkata those days, said skeptics used to explain to him that Kerala being one of the poorest states in India did not have the money for human development. Now, Kerala has climbed up in terms of per capita income, removal of poverty, basic education and restraining fertility, he said.
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