Nobel laureate and economist Amartya Sen. file | Photo credit: GP Sampath Kumar
Amidst the ongoing controversy at Visva Bharati University where the university has accused Nobel laureate Amartya Sen of land grab, Professor Sen on Thursday said he is shocked at the mindset of the central university authorities.
He also told reporters at his Santiniketan residence that people engaged in education should find out whether justice or injustice is being done.
Earlier this week, a letter signed by the deputy registrar of Visva Bharati alleged that Professor Sen’s residence had been built on an area that included an additional 13 decimals of land.
Professor Sen called the contents of the letter “frivolous”. The Economist said he was “extremely incensed” by the developments. “This is my residence which was built in the 1940s on land taken on lease from Visva-Bharati. The land was given to us on lease for 100 years. Some land was also bought by my father following the rules and regulations from the market. There was no danger of overstaying,” said Professor Sen.
The Visva Bharati University Faculty Association had denied the allegations against Professor Sen.
VBUFA secretary Kaushik Bhattacharya said in a statement on Thursday, “The allegation of unauthorized occupation of Visva-Bharati’s land leveled against Amartya Sen by Visva-Bharati’s Vice Chancellor Bidyut Chakraborty is patently false.”
Professor Bhattacharya said that Professor Sen’s land is surrounded by private land on three sides and the rest is adjacent to the PWD road. There was no land owned by Vishwabharati next to Professor Sen’s land.
baselessly and maliciously
“Therefore, it is impossible for Sen to illegally occupy any land of Visva-Bharati. Moreover, the allegations have been made without any proof of malafide intention,” he said.
University Vice-Chancellor Bidyut Chakraborty, without naming Professor Sen, had hit out at him by saying that those taking refuge in being “Rabindrik” (originating from the philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore) did not participate in the practices prescribed by Gurudev (Tagore). ) but was involved in all kinds of activities including land grabbing. Professor Chakraborty, who was appointed vice-chancellor in 2018, was often accused by a section of faculty members and students of trying to impose the ideology of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
This was not the first time that the Visva Bharati administration had targeted Professor Sen for criticizing the policies of the central government. In 2020, the university administration had named Professor Sen in the list of encroachers of university land.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee sent a letter in support of the Nobel laureate. In turn, Professor Sen termed the allegations as politically motivated.
“Some land was also bought by my father from the market following all the rules and regulations”Professor Amartya SenNobel prize winner