CALCUTTA: At the center of a furious dispute over his family in “illegal” possession of land in Visva Bharati, Nobel laureate Amartya sen he accused his vice chancellor of acting at the behest of the Center “with its increasing control over Bengal”.
Sen was born in 1933 in Santiniketan, which is home to Visva-Bharati, the university founded by Rabindranath Tagore, another Nobel laureate and a literary giant from Bengal.
Sen, in a press release late Friday, said that all of the land occupied by him on the sacred campus was registered under a long-term lease that was not close to expiring.
“I could comment on the great gap between the Santiniketan culture and that of VC, empowered as it is by the central Delhi government with its growing control over Bengal,” Sen wrote.
A great controversy had erupted on Thursday, the day the Prime Minister Narendra modi addressed the Visva-Bharati centennial celebrations, when media reported that the university has written to the West Bengal government alleging that dozens of parcels of land it owned were wrongly registered in the name of private parties, including the Senator.
These people had set up restaurants, schools and other businesses on their land, the varsity team reportedly said.
Referring to the reports, Sen said that the Visva-Bharati authorities had never complained to him or his family about irregularities in land tenure.
The Nobel laureate claimed that the Visva Bharati land on which his house is located is on a long-term lease, which is nowhere near expiration.
“My father bought additional land as free property and registered it in the land registers with mouja Surul,” he said.
A freehold land is a parcel of land over which the owner has full control in perpetuity.
“I would rather use Indian laws as they exist. For mental fortitude, I can grab the beautiful old image of our Abanindranath Tagore house, among others,” he said.
Abanindranath was the nephew of Rabindranath Tagore and a famous painter from the Bengal School of Art.
Amartya Sen’s maternal grandfather, Kshitimohan Sen, was a student at Santiniketan that eventually became a university and was honored with ‘Deshikottam’, a coveted award, in 1952. Kshitimohan Sen was the first winner of the award.
In media reports on VC’s claim to the faculty that Sen had called him in to discredit the eviction of street vendors selling their wares in front of his ‘Pratichi’ house, Sen said: “The need to invent completely imaginary conversations with me, starting in an impossible way with me introducing myself as ‘Bharat Ratna’ something that no one has ever heard me do. ”
Launching a punch at Chakrabarty, Sen called him “an inventive artist.”
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had reacted angrily to media reports on Thursday, saying: “Due to her anti-BJP ideological stance, Amartyada has been the target of such a cruel attack by the current university authorities.
“I respect Amartya da. Do you think Amartya Sen has occupied land? I offer my apologies to Amartya da on behalf of Bengal,” Banerjee said.
She also wrote a letter to Sen and asked him to consider her a “sister and friend” in his war against “intolerance and totalitarianism.”
BJP The head of state, Dilip Ghosh, had warned Sen on Friday against being “used” by people with political interests.
“We may disagree with him ideologically, but we have respect for him. We urge him not to be used by anti-development political forces in West Bengal,” Ghosh said.
The US-based economist, an icon of Bengali achievements on the world stage, has often been critical of the economic policies of the Narendra Modi government.
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