Amartya Sen appalled by Modi, not Mamta

Amartya Sen is from East Bengal. His family had to run away from there. Why? It was Muslim majority and joined Pakistan. Hindus were ethnically cleansed. Why did Sen's family relocate to India? The answer is that India is Hindu majority. Later, Sen ran off with his best friend's wife. As a consequence he had to relocate to the UK where a man who abandons his family to commit adultery is not looked upon with disfavor. 

Recently, the ninety year old nutter has been trying to promote Mamta as Modi's successor in 2024. He says she 'has the ability to be India’s next Prime Minister but it is yet to be seen whether she will be able to pull the forces of public dismay against the BJP'.

This is decidedly odd. The recent elections have shown no 'dismay' against the BJP anywhere. In Gujarat, Modi won by the biggest landslide in its history. By contrast, Mamta who spent 47 crores, as opposed to the BJPs 17 crore, in the Goa elections, got no seats at all. Kejriwal did manage to get 2 seats. Even in Himachal, where Congress won, it is not the BJP which is blamed but rather specific personalities. 

Mamta, it must be said, is very pleased with Sen. Her displeasure would mean arson and beatings. 

The Outlook magazine offers other snippets of Sen's great wisdom- 

"I think a number of regional parties are clearly important. I think the DMK is an important party, the TMC is certainly important and the Samajwadi Party (SP) has some standing but whether that could be extended.

Stalin, as head of the DMK, is promoting Rahul- whom he calls 'Sir'- for the top job. His own son is being raised up to challenge the BJP's charismatic young leader in TN. The question is whether Stalin will give Rahul a safe seat for 2024 because Wayanad's Muslims are unlikely to re-elect him. The bigger problem is the revival of the CPM. Vijayan has a Muslim son-in-law. Why shouldn't the CPM become the 'secular' national party? Congress lost any claim to be so when it allied with the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra. Rahul's incessant Temple hopping has further sullied this image. By contrast, the CPM- which has defeated anti-incumbency in Kerala and gotten rid of its gerontocratic politburo- can use its vast tech savvy support base to project itself as the alternative to the BJP. After all, Xi's China has done well. Vijayan himself says he wants to be the Deng Xiaoping of India. 

Mamta is projecting her nephew as her successor in the TMC. The various Samajwadi parties are dynastic as is the DMK. Can the dynasts make a come-back in 2024? Sure- if Modi messes up but Modi shows little sign of doing so. The alternative is to have a popular and credible PM candidate. This could have been Gehlot but he preferred to stay in Rajasthan. The problem for dynasts is that if they yield to the temptation to get something tasty at the Center, then they may lose their own ancestral bastions. The other problem has to do with seat redistribution which is due in 2031, unless Parliament decides otherwise in 2026. Here the South is pitted against the Malthusian disaster zone where Samajwadi parties thrive. 

"I do not know. I think it would be a mistake to take the dismissive view that there is no other party that can take the place of BJP since it has established itself as a party with a vision that is inclined in the direction of Hindus over the rest of the country."

It was foolish to attack Modi as a Hindu chauvinist because the vast majority of the population is Hindu. If Modi is now in the top job it was no thanks to Vajpayee or even Advani. Congress and the 'Secular' Left built him up as a Hitler. They forgot that Hitler was very popular. 

Sen was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998 for his work on welfare economics. His work concerned the question of most fundamental and important resources in a society and their division.

No. The silly man wasted his time explaining why it would take an infinite amount of time to decide how to divide a cake which nobody in their right mind would bake. 

"One focus of Amartya Sen's research is how individuals' values can be considered in collective decision-making and how welfare and poverty can be measured. 

The answer was simple. If an individual contributes a lot and can leave if he is unhappy, then you have to consider his 'values'. Equally, if you want to attract individuals of a certain type, you must pander to their values. That's why Dubai is building synagogues. On the other hand, if a bunch of people can run amok and kill lots of people, you may have to yield to their 'values'. 

His efforts stem from his interest in questions of distribution and, in particular, the lot of society's poorest members. 

His work was mischievous when it wasn't useless. During the Nineties, everybody realized that only 'Tardean Mimetics'- imitating what smarter peeps have done- is effective in raising up the poor. Sitting on committees and talking about 'relative deprivation' is a waste of time.

Sen's studies have included famines, to create a deeper understanding of the economic reasons behind famine and poverty," notes the Nobel Prize website.

Famine is caused by food availability deficit. Sen denied this obvious truth. Poverty is caused by poor people having babies who are bound to themselves be poor. The solution is to get girls out of villages and into big factory dormitories. 

Sen's comment come at a time when a number of Opposition leaders have pitched for a united opposition to the BJP. Leaders of several parties, including the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Janata Dal-United (JD-U), have called for a new alliance including the Congress for the Lok Sabha polls in 2024. They have emphasised that a bipolar contest will ensure the BJP's defeat.

But opposition parties will be wiped out if they put up RaGa as their PM candidate. This is the crux of the problem. Voters want Modi at the Center even if they don't want the BJP in their own State. Gehlot- a successful CM- was a possible rival. But he wasn't budging. Who will step forward now? Mamta has had her fingers burnt in Gujarat. Kejriwal has his own problems- Punjab is not easy to rule- who else is there? Kharge has doubled down on promoting RaGa but the guy is getting stupider and stupider. He takes up ordinary Hindu terms- e.g. tapasya and puja- and shows that he doesn't understand them at all. 

Sen told PTI, "The BJP has substantially reduced the vision of India. 

What sort of vision of India holds that it should be ruled by an Italian lady or her idiot son purely on the basis of hereditary entitlement? 

It has narrowed the understanding of India as just Hindu India 

which is what it is in most parts of the country. Where Hindus aren't the majority there is secessionism. 

and as a Hindi-speaking India 

Gujarat, Maharashtra and Karnataka are not Hindi speaking. The BJP is giving States more power to promote their own languages at the expense of English. 

in such a strong way that it would be sad if there is no alternative to the BJP in India today.

It is sad that Rahul is a mooncalf and that the other dynastic parties are crooked and incompetent. Mamta too is turning into a dynast. 

"If the BJP looks strong and powerful, it has a good deal of weakness too. So, I think other political parties will be able to come to a debate if they really try. I do not know enough to be able to dismiss the anti-BJP parties together."

Rahul's point is that all other parties have allied at one time on another with the BJP. That is why he clams to be the fountainhead of opposition to the BJP in the country. The problem is that the BJP would never have won a majority at the center if he hadn't been so utterly stupid and useless. 

On whether Banerjee could be the country's next PM, Sen said she has the ability.

No. She lacks both the temperament and the ability. She will storm out of the Cabinet and engage in all manners of histrionics. Her administration will collapse. On the other hand, crooks will make money as never before. 

He said, "It's not that she does not have the ability to do it. She clearly has the ability.

Kamraj was asked if he wanted to be PM. He replied 'No English. No Hindi. How?' On the other hand, Gowda did become PM. But he didn't last long. Both Kamraj and Nadar lived to regret their meddling in politics at the center because both lost their home base.  This is the problem faced by regional parties. Modi, it will be remembered, got elected from Benares to take the top job. He was signaling that he wasn't a Gujerati politician but a Hindu statesman representing the holiest City of his Religion. 

Mamta's Goa excursion could be excused as payback for Amit and Modi's challenge to her on her home turf. But she knows that the BJP's rise in her state- now that its cadres have been soundly beaten- is advantageous to her because it has contributed to the demise of both the Left Front and Congress. 

Regional parties led by Banerjee's TMC, K Chandrashekar Rao's Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), and Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), had formed the Federal Front (FF) in the run-up to the 2019 general election. In January of that year, talks were held among the leaders gathered in Kolkata at a grand meeting organised by the TMC supremo.

KCR has set up his own national party. Kejriwal was never keen on the alliance though he blamed RaGa for preventing his joining it. What is indisputable is that RaGa's attack on Mamta in March 2019, put paid to any notion that the TMC would ally with Congress. 

The plain fact is that Mamata is mercurial but not utterly crazy. RaGa is a mooncalf. He constantly attacks people who have achieved things in life though everybody knows he is a shirker not a worker. 

Among those present were JD(S) leader and then Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy,

who would soon regret allying with Congress as he lost his post when some allied MPs rebelled. The message was clear- the party in power at the center can offer better inducements both to independent MPs as well as to factional leaders. Thus, there is little point in being against the PM unless there is a good prospect he will be unseated. 

 former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda, 

who had been pumped and dumped by Congress

Arvind Kejriwal (AAP), former UP Chief Ministers Akhilesh Yadav (SP),

who repented tying up with RaGa. It is notable that Akhilesh, Mamata and Kejriwal are giving Bharat Jodo a wide berith.

MK Stalin (DMK) of Tamil Nadu, 

Stalin was tortured by Indira Gandhi's goons during the Emergency. His people got an ample revenge by getting her son killed. Still, it is puzzling that Stalin continues to back the useless Rahul even now. 

Sen expressed doubts about the Congress' ability to win the 2024 elections, which he believes has "weakened". He, however, said that it is the only party to provide an all-India vision.

He said, "The Congress seems to have weakened a lot and I do not know how much somebody can rely on Congress. On the other hand, Congress certainly provides an all-India vision 

Only if your Mummy or Daddy was PM can you be PM and even then your name must be Rahul not Varun. 

which no other party can take over. Then again, there are divisions within the Congress."

Sen has been critical of the Modi government in the past as well.

In 2018, Sen said India has taken a "quantum jump

i.e. a transition to a different energy state 

 in the wrong direction" since 2014.

The reverse was the case. It was obvious that Manmohan was tired and had zero energy. Modi was full of beans. 

Turning to a recent interview Sen gave Karan Thapar, I read in the Wire that Sen takes a dim view of the ruling party at the Center.  This is understandable. He blamed the BJP for not extending his term as Chancellor of Nalanda. However, it was Pranab Mukherjee, not Modi, who had put the kybosh on Sen's tenure there. 

Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, who was conferred the Bharat Ratna in 1999 by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, has said: “The Modi government is one of the most appalling in the world.”

But the Modi government is better than any non-Modi government on offer. Sen is an economist. He should understand that only opportunity cost matters. The fact is, Mamta's government is more appalling than a BJP administration would be in West Bengal. That's why, despite the best efforts of Mamta's thugs, the BJP is now the main opposition party there. One reason for this is that some districts in West Bengal have become Muslim majority. Indeed, it appears that the Muslim percentage of the population is rising to the pre-Partition level. Last October, Muslims in some Kolkata neighborhoods attacked Hindus during Laxmi Puja. A police station was set on fire. Mamta's police ran away. 

Professor Sen explained that he has come to this view because “it [the government] treats its own people in such a nasty way,”

Sen maintains a residence in West Bengal. Successive Bengali governments have treated Bengalis in very nasty ways. Sen has kept silent on such nastiness. Attacking Mamta's enemy- the BJP- however, keeps his property in Bengal safe.  

adding that “the Indian government’s record has been really rather terrible.”

Gujarat's record has been good. West Bengal's record has been terrible. That is why Gujarat has risen so much higher than West Bengal.  

He also said the Modi government’s treatment of Muslims, and the fact that it has no Muslim MP in either House of the parliament, is “unacceptably barbaric”.

Bengalis can teach the country plenty about barbarism. But nobody wants such instruction. The fact is all the Muslim candidates put up by the BJP for the Lok Sabha lost in 2019. There is one Muslim MP in the NDA but he is from a different party. I think there is still one nominated Muslim BJP Rajya Sabha MP but he is a social worker not a politician. 

Why is there an anti-BJP bias among Muslim voters? Partly, this is because of incessant anti-Modi propaganda. However, there is another issue- viz. reservations for Pasmanda Muslims which would be resented by Dalits- which will have to be resolved sooner or later. 

“The word barbaric comes to my tongue because

the fool thinks he himself is civilized. He isn't. He is a senile bigot whose people had to run away from East Bengal because they were Hindu. Since Hindu India took in his people, he considers Hindus barbaric. On the other hand, he hasn't raised a peep about America's war on Terror which killed 1.3 million Muslims. 

it’s not just unjust and wrong but it makes people’s lives totally precarious

his people's lives in East Pakistan were very precarious. But Hindus will soon have to flee Muslim dominated parts of West Bengal and Assam.  

and makes India’s culture limited,” he said.

Political Islam wants culture to be very limited indeed. In particular, women should say indoors- not go to school or take up employment. 

In a 34-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, Professor Sen discussed and considerably expanded upon a comment he made to the French newspaper Le Monde

the French have banned the hijab. Who knows what Marie Le Pen will do if she comes to power? 

on December 19: “It (the Indian government) is communitarian in the narrowest sense of the term, attacking Muslims and propagating the idea that Hindus form a nation.”

Hindus do form a nation. Where any other Religion predominates, there is secessionism. The biggest attacks on Muslims occurred under Nehru. Mahatma Gandhi told the Congressmen of Bihar that he knew which of them had been personally involved in killing Muslims. Sen was a Professor in India when the Custodian of Evacuee (later 'Enemy') property was harassing thousands of wealthy Muslims and getting them to run away to Pakistan. It is rather late in the day for this senile coot to pretend he ever gave a toss about Muslims. Why did he not denounce the soi disant 'War on Terror' from his bully pulpit at Harvard? Manmohan Singh's daughter, a Human Rights lawyer, has been a thorn in the side of the American military regarding the Guantanamo inmates. Sen hasn't uttered a word on any such subject. His virtue signaling is confined to attacking, first Manmohan Singh, and now Modi. This serves him well because his own West Bengal isn't ruled by either Congress or the BJP.  

While elaborating on his Le Monde interview, he said: “India has always been a multi-ethnic country,”

Pakistan used to have large Sikh and Hindu populations. It doesn't any more. Why? Bangladesh is ethnically homogenous but it has ethnically cleansed Hindus and Buddhists like nobody's business. East Punjab and Jammu and Rajasthan also did some ethnic cleansing of Muslims while Kashmir Valley has gotten rid of its indigenous Pundit community. As for Delhi, Nehru presided over massive ethnic cleansing of Muslims. They had been one third of the population in 1941. This was reduced to 5 percent. The total Muslim percentage of India population by 1951 was just ten percent. It has risen to about 14 percent now. But it lost all its former privileges- reserved seats, preservation of Urdu, affirmative action for 'untouchable' Muslims- and was subjected to severe police repression if that suited the administration.  

adding pointedly that the Modi government’s communitarian and majoritarian policies are “a reduction of India”.

Muslims partitioned the country and ethnically cleansed Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims wherever they could. Sikhs and some Hindus retaliated where they were able to do so.  

He added that it was “a demolition of part of the country”.

Which occurred when he was a school-boy. 

He called it “a national disaster”, adding that it was “a matter of horrendous potential of nastiness”.

The nastiness happened long ago. Then, because Nehru & Co listened to stupid Bengali mathematical economists- (to be fair, there were also some stupid South Indian economists of that sort) and nastiness increased exponentially. Sen, thankfully, was able to escape with his best friend's wife.  He may be a nasty little man but he does know on which side his bread is buttered. 

When I asked if he believes that anti-Muslim prejudice is growing in India and Muslims are becoming second class citizens, and whether he is worried about this, he said: “I am not only worried, I am terrified that a nation with different components is suddenly in a state of catastrophic isolation.”

Sen, being a Bengali buddhijivi, thinks that Hindus are shit at fighting. Only Muslims and Christians and Communists are capable of killing. Thus Hindu India should not become 'isolated'. Instead it must constantly offer its arse for punitive buggery so as to receive such protection as is afforded a catamite. Sen hates Modi because the fellow is not a pusillanimous coward. Also the fellow belongs to a 'backward' caste. Chee, chee! 

The fact is, Hindus like fighting just as much as anybody else. Also they don't like vacuous gobshites like Sen- unless they are themselves vacuous Bengali-wogs. But vacuous Bengali-wogs may soon have to run away from Muslim majority districts in their own state. Where will they go? 

“The ill-treatment of minorities is one of the major follies of the nation,” he added.

Bangladesh treated its minorities like shit. But it got rural girls into giant factory dormitories and so it overtook first Pakistan and now much of India. It may soon take over portions of Assam and West Bengal. Why stick with Mamta's thugs when Sheikh Hasina can deliver better economic outcomes? 

He said this treatment of Muslims is “a fantastic denigration and demolition of the country’s history and its present”.

Mamta has coddled Muslims- that is true enough- but has this really helped West Bengal to rise?  

He told The Wire “to only count Hindus as Indians and not anyone else is terrible… a dreadful confusion of the nature of our country… a terrible folly to ignore the multiple pluralistic nature of the country.”

It is a folly Sen's people were guilty of. Why didn't they remain in East Bengal waiting patiently to have their throats slit? Why did they move to Hindu majority India? 

It is a terrible folly, in a Democratic country, to ignore 80 per cent of the population so as to coddle a obstreperous minority. Europe has turned against 'multi-culti'. America never had it in the first place. 

Asked how he viewed the fact that cabinet ministers and even chief ministers refer to Muslims as “termites”

Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh- sure. The fact is, the BJP has been able to come to power in Assam only because of its perceived hardline on such migration.  

and “Babar ki aulad“,

i.e. a descendant of the Moghul Emperor- what's wrong with that? 

taunt them with references to ‘abba jaan’

which is a polite and affectionate way of referring to one's father 

and repeatedly tell them to go to Pakistan,

Which Nehru himself did. The context was whether India would continue to protect minorities with reserved seats. Nehru's position was that Partition had nullified any such commitments previously made. If Indian Muslims wanted reserved seats let them go get them in Pakistan. 

Professor Sen said: “This language is a reflection of a distorted understanding of the Indian nation.”

No. It is a reflection of the outcome of the 1946 general election. Muslims voted overwhelmingly for the League and thus the 'two nation theory', while Hindus voted overwhelmingly for Congress which delivered what they wanted- viz a strong center able and willing to use military force against any Islamic or Communist threat. Sen, with child-like innocence, did not understand what was happening all around him though he was 14 years old and capable of reading the newspapers.  

He further said: “They [the Modi government] don’t understand what a nation means.”

No. A Nationalist party which is actually ruling a nation does understand what that nation means. Put simply a country which is over 80 percent Hindu is a Hindu nation. Flattering Hindus and denigrating non-Hindus wins votes. It is popular. So is fighting and defeating enemies on the field of battle. Talking vacuous, virtue signaling, bollocks has nothing to do with the concept of any nation big enough to defend itself against all comers. 

In response to a question on the poor representation of Muslims in central and state government services, such as the paramilitary services, the IAS, IFS, IPS, and the army, as well as their poor representation in parliament, and the fact there are no Muslim chief ministers in any of the 28 states, and 15 states have no Muslim ministers at all, he said: “The 15% (Muslims) are seen as if they don’t matter… as if they are there not in their own right as human beings who are part of the nation but only because of the tolerance of the majority.”

This is nonsense. Muslims, as a cohesive political force, are seen as stupid, ignorant and fanatical. Individual Muslims, on the other hand, may rise by their own efforts or inherent talents. But then they aren't really seen as Muslim at all. Look at Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London. We don't think of him as a Muslim. We think of him as working class lad who went to the local Comprehensive and then worked hard to qualify as a solicitor. He may not be glamorous or flamboyant, like his predecessor, but he does know the problems faced by ordinary Londoners because he was one himself. Rishi Sunak, by contrast, is seen as a 'Richie Rich'. Still, if he understands high finance and can get us out of the hole we are in, then well and good. Hopefully, the Tories will offer us someone more appetizing (bring back BoJo!) come the election. 

When asked how the current Indian government compares with the governments in nations like Iran, Afghanistan, and Russia, he said the fact that the other governments may be worse is no great comfort to the people of India.

This is foolish. Indians need to compare themselves with similar states. India is doing a lot better than Afghanistan or Pakistan because crazy Islamists are kept out of politics.  Dynasts in Sri Lanka and Pakistan have destroyed the economy. Even Bangladesh is in a precarious situation. Suppose the Islamists manage to kill Sheikh Hasina, its hard won economic gains will disappear overnight because the female participation rate will fall and the country will starve. 

The fact is, BJP governments in India tend to be better than the alternative. This is not always the case which is why it can lose states where it has a strong grass-roots presence- e.g. Himachal. 

What is a great comfort to India is the knowledge that Sonia and her 'National Advisory Council' filled with Sen-tentious cretins, and RaGa with his MPhil from Cambridge in 'Development Studies', have been disintermediated from Indian policy making. Nobody in Delhi now listens to Sen or Basu or other such Bengaliwogs. Thanks must go to Modi for this salutary outcome.