Cutting across the ideological line, some intellectuals and academics from West Bengal are contemplating social boycott of the vice chancellor of Viswa Bharati University Bidyut Chakraborty for his devious action to malign the renowned Bengali scholar and Noble laureate Amartya Sen.
The academics and intellectuals hold the view that by indulging in such nature of vilification he has lost the right to be respected by the Bengali people. The scholars are working out the nature of the boycott. Some of them plan to approach the President of India to take note of the image of India among the global fraternity.
What has triggered off the anger of the Bengali intellectuals is Chakraborty’s directive to the Bengal government to measure Pratichi’s area, the family home of Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen, to resolve the land “controversy”.
On his part Sen has described this action as “a crude attempt at harassment — or worse” the sudden abuse of his family’s property documents and asked the Viswa-Bharati vice-chancellor to withdraw the false allegations against him. He also shot off a letter to Chakraborty stating; “You have heard from my lawyer asking you to withdraw immediately your false allegation made to the news agencies that a plot of land owned by Visva-Bharati is unlawfully occupied by me.
“While you have not been able to provide any justification for this astonishing allegation, you now say that you are requesting the West Bengal government to measure the area of our homestead, Pratichi, to compare with the long-term lease of land taken by my father in 1940 from Viswa-Bharati.
“Your officiating Registrar, Mr Mahato, has threatened that ‘if there is any additional land occupied by him (Sen), legal action will be taken’.
“This sudden abuse of an 80-year-old document is clearly a crude attempt at harassment — or worse. Among other errors it ignores the big fact, which I have stated many times (even in the context of this dispute), that a substantial amount of free-hold land was purchased by my father (in the market — not from Visva-Bharati) to add to our homestead (with records of purchase registered under Mouza-Surul), on which khajna and Panchayat taxes are paid by me yearly.”
Meanwhile Ashok Mahato, the varsity’s registrar said; “it is true there is an allegation against Amartya Sen and several other persons over encroachment of land. We are not claiming anything now. But we will request the state government’s land department to intervene and resolve the controversy permanently. It will be clear if the land occupied by Amartya Sen is measured. In that case, we, on behalf of Visva-Bharati, and representatives of Sen will be present on the spot,” “If there is any additional land occupied by him (Sen), legal action will be taken,” added Mahato, who also looks after the estate department of the varsity.
Surprisingly while Mahato claimed that the land has been encroached he refused to confirm if there was any encroachment by Sen’s family and quantify the size of land apparently encroached upon.
Sen nevertheless said; “This (intervention by the department) is a ridiculous suggestion as the land department never measures land till there is a specific complaint. It is surprising that the VC commented at a meeting and officials listed the name of Sen as an encroacher without informing him“.
Bidyut Chakraborty is a BJP supporter and has initiated action against Sen at the behest of senior BJP leaders. The scholars hold that the academic society of the state is showing signs of degeneration where cerebral voices are being shunned by politicians when their opinion is not to the liking of the latter. In the process, he has been dragged into an unsavoury contest.
Bengal loves its great minds. People reflect regularly on the achievements of scholars like Sen in dinner-table conversations. Obviously they are now reluctant to maintain silence on the vilification against Sen. The scholars hold that Sen inspires others to disagree and argue. Sen has been championing the values of dialectical interaction between people and communities as well as between social and intellectual traditions. Sen’s most distinguished trait is his ability to respect diverse, differing and contrasting views. It is really deplorable that Bengali academicians like Chakraborty do not appreciate this. Possibly he is getting sadistic pleasure. Sen represents the tradition of academic activism. Obviously the registrar’s threat of ‘legal action’ if he discovers ‘any additional land’ is deplorable.
The VC has been speaking lies is clear from what Sen had said a fortnight back; “I don’t know how the Vice-Chancellor treats his colleagues, but I have to confess I am getting quite tired of the deceptions. For example, the V.C. insisted that I called him by telephone from Santiniketan in June 2019 (he even gave two alternative June dates for this alleged conversation — June 2 and June 14) and said that I introduced myself as Bharat Ratna, which is entirely implausible. On being informed that I was abroad for the entire month of June 2019 and came back to India only in July, the story was promptly altered by the V.C.’s office to assert that I had called in ‘June or July’ but said the same things.”(IPA Service)