Amartya Sen's observation
Iftekhar Sayeed, Dhanmandi, Dhaka
Amartya Sen has been at it again: in his book, The Argumentative Indian, Sen draws inspiration from a Satyajit Ray film to demonstrate that authoritarian rule is not rooted in Asian values. Well, how about Indian values, then? Sen has managed to overlook such "authoritarian" manifestations as the Babri Mosque affair and related massacre (plus the fact that the architect of the affair became Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister); the Gujarat carnage; the anti-Sikh pogroms... . What, however, he cannot overlook is the fact that the Indian society is strictly hierarchic, with the Dalits treated hardly as human beings. Consider the caste struggle the name of an article in Newsweek (July 3rd, 2000, pages 18- 22). According to the article, "Every hour, two Dalits are assaulted, three Dalit women are raped, two Dalits are murdered and two Dalit houses are burned". If that's the picture of a vigorous democratic society, arguing away over the hookahs about human equality and human rights, while denying a fraternal puff to all untouchables, then Amartya Sen is very wrong about his own country, his own culture and his own religion.
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