Hindus and Muslims must work together, not just tolerate each other: Amartya Sen on Bengal

Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has said that the people of Bengal should stand up for secularism and not make the mistake of letting the State lose the force of religion-neutral politics.

Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has said that the people of Bengal should stand up for secularism and not make the mistake of letting the State lose the force of religion-neutral politics.

“The major issue in Bengal today is to stand up for secularism, which needs strong defence, that sometimes it does not get, despite the long secular tradition of this region. Bengal needs a politics that is independent of religious sectarianism,” the celebrated economist said in an email to Sudipta Bhattacharyya, professor of economics and politics at Visva-Bharati.

Prof. Bhattacharyya is also the president of Visva-Bharati University Faculty Association, and had strongly supported the Nobel laureate last year when the university administration came up with the claim that a part of Prof. Sen’s ancestral property in Santiniketan stood on university land. The matter went to court and is still pending there.

“It would be a mistake to let the force of religion-neutral politics be lost, and, most importantly, we must not lose the united identity of Bengal. I was thinking of my grandfather, Kshiti Mohan Sen, explaining that the importance of Hindu-Muslim unity is not primarily about tolerating each other [much more is needed than that], but rather about Hindus and Muslims working together, as they have historically done, to build rich literature, major architecture, exceptional artistry, and so many other products of joint work,” Prof. Sen said in his email to the Visva-Bharati professor.