I/II.
http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/the-government-would-have-loved-it-if-i-had-quietly-slunk-away-but-that-i-was-not-willing-to-do-amartya-sen/
The government would have loved it if I had quietly slunk away, but
that I was not willing to do: Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen speaks about his assessment of Modi's first year as PM,
researching gender in the 1960s, his love for Sanskrit literature, and
what judo can teach those who frame social policy.
Nobel laureate Amartya Sen.
Written by Amrita Dutta | New Delhi | Updated: July 8, 2015 7:53 am
Nobel laureate Amartya Sen’s new book is a collection of essays,
brought out by the Oxford University Press in collaboration with The
Little Magazine. In this wide-ranging interview, he speaks to Amrita
Dutta about his assessment of Narendra Modi’s first year as PM,
researching gender in the 1960s, his love for Sanskrit literature, and
what judo can teach those who frame social policy.
*The Country of First Boys is the title of your new book, a collection
of essays. Could you talk a bit about what the phrase is trying to
say?*
When I was growing up in Bengal, it was a big thing: ‘Who is the first
boy in class?’ It had to be a boy, and, second, he had to be a great
achiever. And it didn’t matter what the others did. I found it very
offensive, even as a child. There are three things here. One, ***there
is a strong gender preference, which is characteristic of India, much
more so than we often recognise. If you compare India with Thailand,
Indonesia, Malaysia, not to mention China, we come out worse in female
life expectancy, female literacy, female schooling, female survival.
The previous government did not do enough, but the present government
is doing less than enough.*** [Emphasis added.]
The second thing is the concentration on the more successful and
neglecting what happens to the rest. [Of course], we see great
successes. Indians go abroad and run institutions, whether it be
Microsoft or Deutsche Bank. On the other hand, there are a whole lot
of people from whom we have no expectations, nor do they have any
expectations from themselves. The third point is that success or
failure depends a great deal on social stratification, on caste,
class, community and so on.
*A year on, how do you read the PM as a leader? Were some of your
fears about Narendra Modi unfounded? Were some confirmed?*
***The positive thing about Modi, which I recognized even earlier, was
that he was telling people: we can get things done. I admired it then,
I admired it now. The problem begins with what it is that he wants to
get done.*** [Emphasis added.]
***I think he has a wrong understanding of economic development. You
can think of development as a process with human beings at the centre,
or you can see it as a process with financial and industrial
leadership [at the centre]. He definitely belongs to the latter
[school of thought].*** [Emphasis added.] You need the financial
leaders, no doubt, you also need the industrial entrepreneurs. But
humanity has to be in the middle. The previous government also failed
in that but they were trying to correct a bit with [schemes like]
Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, funding for which has just been cut. Funding for
school meals too has just been cut. I don’t think we recognise how out
of tune India is with Asia, because the Asian model of economic
development has been to combine the power of the market economy with
human beings having the capability to lead a good life. There is some
idea that you first become rich, and then raise the level of human
development. ***But every country that has been successful, whether we
look at Europe and America, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore,
Hong Kong, China or Thailand, has concentrated on raising human
capability along with the power of market economy. We pay no attention
to that, as if the quality of human beings is not central to human
development. If India was bad at that earlier, it’s worse at it
now.*** [Emphasis added.]
***I can’t say I am disappointed, I was expecting that. Because they
were playing up Gujarat, which may have had a high growth rate but has
neglected the human side—recently the Economist ran an article on how
its immunisation rates are lower than Bihar’s.*** [Emphasis added.]
But what made me speak up at the time of the elections was my concern
at the Hindutva elements in Modi’s agenda. You see that as an academic
very much now, in the interference in the academic administration of
the National Book Trust, where A Sethumadhavan has been replaced by an
RSS ideologue, or at the Indian Council of Cultural Relations or the
Indian Council of Historical Research. There has been that
sectarianism [on display]. And despite rhetoric to the contrary, there
have been cases of church burning, talk of ghar wapsi. India deserves
better than that. In that respect, have I been reassured? I am afraid
not.
*What is happening at the Nalanda University now? Has some kind of a
compromise been worked out?*
***What happened at Nalanda is a relatively nicer story than either it
first appeared and also compared with what is happening to other
educational/cultural institutions like ICCR or NBT or ICHR or for that
matter TIFR, as well as what might be happening to the IIMs if the
bill goes through. The board wanted unanimously me to continue as
chancellor, but the government’s advice was clear: under no
circumstances. Some people wanted to continue the battle but I thought
that would be a mistake. First, because attention was being diverted
to a personality issue. Second, it was clear to me that even if my
friends in the board were to win in keeping me as chancellor, I could
not be an effective leader because I would have to fight the
government all the time. But I decided to make it a public affair so
that it would be difficult to put a Hindutva ideologue in charge at
Nalanda. The government did not want it to be made public at all. They
would have loved it if I had quietly slunk away, but that, I am
afraid, I was not willing to do.*** [Emphasis added.]
*Did anybody in the government reach out — the PM or the Minister of
External Affairs — to you after you spoke out?*
They couldn’t reassure me. The ministry of external affairs put out a
lot of misleading statements, like ‘Amartya Sen was impatient. We
would have liked him to continue’. But the minister did not say so.
The minister spoke clearly to the members of the board and said that
Amartya Sen wasn’t acceptable. Even if the ministry made public
statements, they were at odds with what the minister was saying to the
board. I think she was also trying to get a non-Sen solution, and
we’ve got a good solution. [Former foreign minister of Singapore
George Yeo has been appointed chancellor.] I am happy with the way it
has turned out. ***If there’s one thing to learn from this, it is that
in a democracy, if you are critical of the government, you have to
express it. Sitting quietly and grumbling about it is not going to
help. That’s not what democracy is for.*** [Emphasis added.]
*Could you talk a bit about your love for Sanskrit literature? What
sense does it give you ancient Indian culture?*
Sanskrit and maths were my favourite subjects in school. When the
Nobel academy asked me to donate two items to its museum, I gave them
Aryabhata’s book on maths, Aryabhatiya, which I had read in Sanskrit
in school, and my bicycle. The bike I had used to collect data about
the famine period. I would ride to farms in Bengal and get them to
open their dusty rooms where they had kept their records. I used it
even more while researching on gender and inequality, when I would go
to villages near Santiniketan to weigh boys and girls under the age of
five. (By the time girls were five, they had fallen behind in terms of
weight.) I was very proud that I had become quite good at weighing
children. I had a very good research assistant, the first Santhal in
her village to get a BA. On one occasion, she called me to help her
weigh a teething child. And I did it without getting bitten.
I get an extraordinary positive impression of the past, which makes me
very proud. I get an impression of a very cerebrally active society —
never as remarkable as the Chinese in observational science — but in
the philosophy of science, and the speculation of it, very high brow.
On the philosophy of jurispredence. In fact, my book Idea of Justice
is based on a distinction that only Sanskrit scholars make, between
niti and nyaya. I think Meghdootam is extraordinarily important to
understanding Indian culture. But my favourite Kalidasa play is
Mricchakatika — and it had a profound influence on my understanding of
justice. I also like the Vedas, and I don’t think you have to be a
passionate believer in Hindutva to like it — it is a great book.
People don’t even recognise that it is not just a book on religion but
also a book on human behaviour. Some of the verses are absolutely
overpowering. But I don’t at all accept the view that the Vedas had
interesting mathematics. It had some arithmetic puzzles, that is all.
*When you started analysing women’s health and education with respect
to economic growth, in the 1960s, what were the reactions?*
I became interested in gender equality when I was in college at
Presidency, Kolkata. Marx’s idea of false consciousness, I thought,
applied to women. I also did a few papers when I was teaching in
Jadavpur University. I was amazed not just at the inequality but the
fact that people knew about it and took it for granted. Secondly, if
you drew their attention to it, they would give you lectures about
culture. I was told that this was a Western point of view, that Indian
women do not think of themselves as individuals, but as an extension
of their families. I had an argument at the Delhi School of Economics
in the 1960s, and I said this was a form of ultimate denial of a
person’s individuality, which is one of the huge possessions we have.
That is the way inequality survives, by making underdogs become
upholders of the inequality.
*Are you working on any books right now?*
I wrote a mathematical book when I was at the Delhi School of
Economics, it was published in 1970, called Collective Choice and
Social Welfare, which I hope I am not being immodest when I say that
it had quite an influence in the literature that followed in
economics. A lot of people have grumbled that I should write a
follow-up. But then some people, including the big influence on my
economic thinking, Kenneth Arrow, told me that it’s a classic, you
can’t change it. So I have begun adding a few chapters to it, and I am
about half-way there.
I am also writing something of a memoir, not to be confused with an
autobiography. It is not about what happened, but about what I
thought. I have reached the age of 12 or 13, so I have a long way to
go.
*You were around 11 when you first saw the ruins of Nalanda. What has
the idea of Nalanda come to mean to you?*
I remember being bowled over, especially at the sight of the
excavations at the site. That’s when I thought I should do something
about it. So my ability to lead the first stage of the Nalanda revival
has been a fulfillment of a dream. The idea of Nalanda emphasises that
human progress has always been linked to thinking, and not just doing.
Secondly, that Indians were capable of building and running such a
university at that time is a matter of considerable pride. They were
teaching religion and philosophy, but also medicine, public
healthcare, linguistics, certainly astronomy—in a way that is
distinctly modern. Third, Nalanda attracted people from everywhere.
They were ready to sit down together and discuss things together,
resolve differences through discussion.
*You have lived all your life on university campuses, haven’t you?*
My father was a teacher, my grandfather was a teacher. One reason I
haven’t retired even though I am 81 is because I love students, and
they like me. Ultimately, when I look back on my life, the thing that
I am happiest with is that I was a teacher.
*You have written for decades on India’s education. What was your
experience of school like?*
I was very lucky because I went to a very nice school in Santiniketan.
[Before that], I had a little over a year at St Gregory’s School in
Dhaka, which was very keen on performance. After I got the Nobel, I
visited the school. The headmaster said they had started a few
scholarships in my name. He also said he got out my old exam scripts
to inspire the students. Inspire, I said? ‘That was my hope,’ said the
headmaster. But then he checked that my position in class was 33rd in
a class of 36, and he wondered whether it was a good idea.
I have to say I became a relatively good student once I went to
Santiniketan, where no one worried about grades, it was almost
shameful to worry about them. One of my teachers described a classmate
of mine: “She is quite an original thinker, even though her grades are
very good.” I liked that aspect: there was no pressure to be a first
boy.
Not only were there girls with me (I was in school in the 1940s) but
my mother was also schooled there earlier. She was proud of the fact
that she did judo there, 90 years ago. She must have been one of the
first Indian women to do judo. She had a Japanese teacher, who for the
first week, only taught them how to fall without hurting themselves.
In some ways, the idea of what happens to those who fall seems to me
not just an approach fit for judo, but for humanity at large—and for
social policy.
II.
http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/ive-received-no-salary-or-remuneration-from-nalanda-university-its-been-a-labour-of-love-says-amartya-sen/99/
I’ve received no salary or remuneration from Nalanda University… It’s
been a labour of love, says Amartya Sen
In an interview with IE, Sen speaks on some of the questions that have
been raised about his relationship with the university. Excerpts.
Written by Seema Chishti | Updated: February 28, 2015 1:19 am
Economist-philosopher Amartya Sen, who has written to the government
to say he would not like to be Chancellor of Nalanda University after
July, spoke to Seema Chishti on some of the questions that have been
raised about his relationship with the university. Excerpts.
*It is sometimes said that since the government is paying for most of
the expenses of Nalanda University, it should be free to take the
major decisions about the running of the university. Shouldn’t it?*
There is a distinction between being, firstly, an autonomous
institution financed by the government and, secondly, an institution
under governmental command. The universities in Europe, going back
many hundreds of years, have become academically excellent through
governmental respect for the autonomy of the universities. The British
guard academic independence in their own country with great care, even
though the British rulers of colonial India very often violated the
autonomy of public academic institutions. We should avoid following
the colonial model.
*There has been speculation about the kind of remuneration you have
received for Nalanda all these years. How much have you received?*
***I have received no salary or remuneration whatsoever from Nalanda
University, and have always worked in an honorary capacity. It has
indeed been an honour for me to work for the revival of Nalanda
University as a labour of love.*** [Emphasis added.]
Related
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No attempt to curtail Amartya Sen's tenure, says Government
*Some critics of Nalanda University have referred to huge expenses
like Rs 2,700 crore or even Rs 3,000 crore. Has Nalanda University
been spending that kind of money?*
No, not at all. ***The total expenses of Nalanda University over four
years, from its founding in 2010 to the end of the last financial year
(2013-14), has been under Rs 25 crore. The total will probably rise
closer to Rs 40 crore for five years by the end of the current
financial year.*** [Emphasis added.] To talk about numbers like Rs
2,700 crore as money being spent by Nalanda University is just
nonsense, and it reflects a huge misinterpretation, or worse. The
government accepted the provision of Rs 2,727 crore for total expenses
if needed (covering capital as well as recurring costs), over 10
years, running from 2010 to 2021. That only specifies the maximum
amount that Nalanda can ask for over a decade, in each case justifying
every demand with complete explanation (including the cost of building
a new campus).
*Other than the government’s rejection of the unanimous decision of
the Governing Board of Nalanda University to ask you to continue as
Chancellor, were there other instances of violation of independence?*
Several, but perhaps the most important has been the treatment of the
statutes passed by the Governing Board — passed many months ago — that
have not been presented to the Visitor, the President of India, for
endorsement. Those with financial implications may call for external
scrutiny (which is only right), but many of them are not financial,
dealing with such matters as procedures of academic appointment. The
Governing Board was also rather surprised when suddenly — without any
consultation and any communication with the Board — the Government
tried to replace the entire Board, which did not work out only because
the move had violated some of the provisions of the Nalanda University
Act of Parliament.
*You have spoken about the “global relevance” of Nalanda. What does
that mean, in the 21st century?*
Old Nalanda was the hub of ancient Asian academic exchange. For
example, Nalanda was the only institution of learning outside China to
which anyone from ancient China ever went for higher education.
***Today, in the list of the top 200 best universities in the world,
no university from India figures at all*** [emphasis added]. Nalanda
could change that. Also, Nalanda made a major contribution to
facilitating pan-Asian intellectual interactions. Just as the
so-called Silk Route worked through exchange of commodities
(including, of course, silk), the so-called Nalanda Trail worked
through people’s thirst for knowledge and education. Inspired by that,
but drawing also on the traditions of the best universities in the
world today (such as Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge), we too are trying to
cultivate international closeness, based not just on trade, but on
people’s interest in the ideas of each other, which have moved people
from country to country throughout history. The vision of Nalanda is
not only grand, it is, I believe, thoroughly achievable through
intelligent pursuit.
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