Official policy to silence critiques of Union Govt?

Garga Chatterjee   Dilip Ghosh, the president of BJP’s West Bengal branch recently lashed out against Professor Amartya Sen, one of Bengal’s two living Nobel laureates – the other person being Dr. Muhammad Yunus. Ghosh had said, “No one in Bengal understands him (Amartya Sen). He himself doesn't understand what he is. He is in extreme pain because he was removed as the chancellor of Nalanda University. Such people are spineless, characterless and they can be purchased or sold”. This sort of a statement has naturally resulted in condemnation all over West Bengal. When Amartya Sen was asked for his response on the matter, he said, "I have nothing to say. Whatever he has felt is right, he has said. He definitely has the right to say so…In that regard, there is no reason for me to object…We should discuss all issues. If he feels this is also a matter for discussions, then he should do it." Even after the widespread condemnation, Dilip Ghosh has reiterated, “I stand by whatever I have said..no regrets". This cheap attack from Ghosh was followed by a similar diatribe by BJP’s West Bengal branch’s leader Chandra Kumar Bose and said that Amartya Sen “called for it”. I will not use this article to argue how great or not-so-great Amartya Sen is but try to analyze what this attack means.   Why now? Amartya Sen has been in the cross-hairs of the Narendra Modi government for some time now. He was removed by the Union government from the position of Chancellor of Nalanda University, a project that he was instrumental in conceiving, roping in various international stake holders. That is now headed by a BJP insider appointee. It is widely understood that the international project that fired the idea of the Nalanda University is doomed after the Amartya Sen led team was shown the door. It did not help that Amartya Sen remains one among millions of people who cannot forget the association between Gujarat riots of 2002 and Narendra Modi and as a thinker has made clear what he makes of the ascendency of this man.   Sen is an economist and a public intellectual and has also expressed his views on demonetization, views that would not please the Union government. If any thinker or intellectual or for that matter any person expressed views that are contrary to that of the Union government or are critical of policies of the Union government, is it now official policy that attack dogs will be let loose in a coordinated fashion so as to silence such views? From what sick culture of politics does this originate? This is certainly not the political culture of Bengal where various strains of politics existed along with scathing mutual critic that also guarantees a celebrated role for public intellectuals opinionating in such matters in crucial times. Dilip Ghosh may belong to Bengal but his political training, his political ideology and conduct are completely alien to the ethos of Bengal. That he thinks that pleasing his Delhi masters by being Delhi’s Bengali hit-man in Bengal who dares to criticize a Bengali icon surely is more important to him that being loyal to the ethos and culture of Bengal shows what is fundamentally wrong with BJP in West Bengal. The Bengaliness of BJP in Bengal in incidental. BJP-ness is fundamental. And this seriously limits its appeal in Bengal, where it is widely conceived to be a party controlled by outsiders, a Hindi-belt party. Among the top 5 parties of West Bengal, BJP has the highest number of non-Bengali Hindi-speaking senior organizational functionaries. Due to its basic ideology, it is a reality that BJP in West Bengal can neither change nor flaunt very strongly.   Thus being cut out of the mainstream of the Bengali political narrative except on issues of communal divisiveness, Dilip Ghosh has decided to troll his way in.   Dilip Ghosh has said that he does not understand Amartya Sen’s work. That is not a crime. The solution to that is to try harder to understand or to move on. To vilify an author or a thinker because one is admittedly not being able to understand his/her work makes his seem that Dilip Ghosh’s limited intellectual ability is somehow Amartya Sen’s responsibility and crime. It is not only a ridiculous position; it is also a position that is against discussion, dialogue, learning and self-improvement. Such a position is against the ethos of Bengal which stresses exactly those things. Dilip Ghosh has not been able to understand Amartya Sen whose most celebrated work is on the causes of Bengal famine. One can critique Amartya Sen’s formulation about the causes of the great Bengal famine of 1943 but what is incontestable are some facts which Dilip Ghosh might like to know.   Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, ideological father of the BJP, had demanded caste based cooks in famine relief stations to prevent caste pollution at a time when millions were dying out of hunger. Some major financial backers of the Hindu Mahasabha were those business houses of Kolkata whose criminal activities of rice, cotton and commodity hoarding is among the set of causes that resulted in the death of millions of Bengalis. The prosperity of these business houses were built over the dead bodies of starving Bengalis. If Bengali lives matter to Dilip Ghosh, I recommend that he read Dr. Janam Mukherjee’s book “Hungry Bengal”. Its content will educate him that in the list of those who did nothing for Bengal and betrayed it her direst hour; many of Ghosh’s present heroes will figure way, way before we come to Amartya Sen.