Journalism of Courage
Nobel laureate Amartya Sen is currently in the middle of a land dispute with Visva-Bharati University (VBU). The institution has accused the economist of occupying land that belongs to it and has sent him notices. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, whose administration has had frequent run-ins with the university in recent years, met Sen last week to hand over documents on the land in question.
In a wide-ranging interview at his home in Santiniketan, Sen talks to The Indian Express about his childhood memories, what he likes about the place, the land row with VBU, and the state of affairs in the country.
Edited excerpts:
I was born in Santiniketan. I do not remember being born but I do remember being here as a very young lad. And you know I lived here not all the time. Several times I lived in Dhaka. Some of the time, yes, I lived here with my maternal grandparents Kshitimohan Sen (former vice-chancellor of Visva Bharati) and Kiranbala Sen. Those were wonderful times.
You see, I was somewhat divided when I was a child. Because my father was a professor at Dhaka University. He was appointed a visiting professor in Mandalay. I was there for three years, From the age of three to six. I have very strong memories of Burma (Myanmar). Then I came back to Dhaka, which I also liked.
The reason why I moved here was the war (World War 2) was going on and my father was convinced that as a metropolitan city both Dhaka and Kolkata would be bombed by the Japanese. But no sensible Japanese was going to try and bomb Santiniketan. And when the Japanese went back home, I refused to go away. I wanted to stay on here.
My grandfather was a famous Sanskrit scholar and a scholar of many dimensions. I liked that life. We used to get up at 4 am and walk at a time the sky was dark. He knew the names of all the stars in Sanskrit. We talked about them and the science of astronomy and also in general. I was very interested in the history of Sanskrit and Pali when I was young. And so I spent a lot of time doing literature, language, and linguistics and so it went well. I was happy.
You are right about this, yes. My mother was close to Rabindranath. When I was born, immediately after Rabindranath heard she (mother) had a child, he sent a letter saying that everybody is using old names to call young people, don’t do it, I have invented a new name for your child. No one before had this name Amartya and that is going to be your son’s name. And that’s all there is.
This is my home. I rest here, I enjoy my time here. I have written several books here. I like the quietness. The peace and the creative opportunities Santiniketan offers not just to me but to anyone.
Even great people, I am not comparing myself with him, but when I talked with Satyajit Ray, Manik da, he said, ‘Yes, I could think, I could ask the question why does a leaf go up and not down and so on?’ So, I asked, ‘How did you think about it?’ He said, ‘Nandalal Bose.’ It raised a question, it remained stuck in my mind. It went round and round in my mind.
That’s the Santiniketan I remember. And that Santiniketan isn’t there right now. Maybe it will come back. But very unfortunate, that at least temporarily it is gone.
Because I can’t think of such a great place having such a meagre and poor fraternity as it has now. How it has got that way, I don’t know. It can’t be all of the present Vice-Chancellor’s (Bidyut Chakraborty) fault, though he must have some responsibility for it. Santiniketan has had a catastrophic decline from the earlier days to today.
If I find things rather deficient in Santiniketan, that does not make me think that it is in sharp contrast to how India is being run today. In fact, it is being run, in my judgement, very poorly. And the poor and less fortunate have very little chance in this country and Santiniketan is not very different from that.
Unfortunately, India has a big difficulty, in my judgment, in the nature of the ruling party. Nowadays, the Opposition has a big role, partly because the ruling party has proved to be so difficult, so vile, and, if I may say, so communal in a country that is intrinsically multi-ethnic and secular. These are difficulties for the Opposition to face.
Well, I don’t know. They have violated rules without knowing it. The whole thing is done in a way that made it convenient for him (V-C) to run the university as he likes. But that is not the way this place has ever been run.
He (V-C) says that Amartya got some property back with the help of the chief minister. But there is nothing about him there (in the land records). I was seven then. I think it would be rather amazing if there were pages after pages written about my property rights at the age of seven.
None, absolutely none. But I am interested (in reading about it). I read The Indian Express and see what’s going on. I get all the papers here.
