Amartya Sen said that all the land occupied by him is registered in records (Archive)
Calcutta:
At the center of a furious dispute over his family’s “illegal” possession of land in Visva Bharati, a livid Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has accused his vice chancellor of acting at the behest of the Center “with its growing control over Bengal.”
Sen was born in 1933 in Shantiniketan, where Visva-Bharati is located, the university founded by Rabindranath Tagore, another Nobel laureate and literary giant from Bengal.
Sen, in a press release late Friday, said that all of the land he occupied on the sacred campus was registered under a long-term lease that was nowhere near expiring.
“I could comment on the great gap between the Shantiniketan and the VC culture, empowered as it is by the central Delhi government with its increasing control over Bengal,” Sen wrote.
A major controversy had erupted on Thursday, the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the Visva-Bharati centenary celebrations when media reported that the university had written to the West Bengal government alleging that dozens of parcels of land of his property was incorrectly registered in the name of private parties, including Mr. Sen.
These people had established restaurants, schools and other businesses on their land, the varsity team said, according to the report.
Referring to the reports, Sen said that the Visva-Bharati authorities had never complained to him or his family of any 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 of Shantiniketan who evolved into a university over time, and was honored with “Deshikottam”, a coveted award, in 1952. Kshitimohan Sen was the first recipient.
In the media reports on VC’s claim to the faculty that Sen had called him to discredit the eviction of street vendors selling their wares in front of his “Pratichi” house, Sen said.
“It would save the need to invent completely imagined conversations with me, starting in an impossible way with my presentation as ” Bharat Ratna ” something that no one has ever heard me do.”
Amartya Sen, who beat up Mr. Chakrabarty, 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 head of state Dilip Ghosh had warned Sen on Friday against being “used” by people with political interests.
“We may not agree with him ideologically, but we respect him. We urge that he not (be allowed 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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