Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has written a letter expressing solidarity with Amartya Sen following reports that the Nobel Laureate economist had been identified along with dozens of others who were “unauthorized occupants” of plots around centrally controlled Viswa Bharati University.
Saying that the allegations were being brought against the octagenarian economist who spent his childhood at Shantiniketan --- receiving the blessings of Poet Laureate Rabindranath Tagore who founded the university --- to harass him as he was not inclined towards the saffron ideology.
Banerjee in her letter said that she would stand by Sen like her sister should he be victimized by some “nouveau invaders” who had “started raising surprising and completely baseless allegations.”
“We all salute Amartya Sen. Just because he isn't inclined towards BJP's ideology, they're making such allegations against him.” she said earlier after State Government reportedly received a communication from the Viswa Bharati alleging Sen was among dozens of unauthorized occupants of plots in the campus.
“We all are aware about your family’s deep and organic linkages with Santiniketan… your maternal grandfather the revered scholar Krishnamohan Sen was one of the early settlers in Santiniketan while your father Asutosh Sen a noted educationist and public administrator had his famed house Pratichi built up in Santiniketan about eight decades back,” her letter read adding how some “nouveau invaders” had started making some surprising and baseless allegations.
“I write this letter to express my surprise and anguish over some recent developments, as I read about them in media, alluding to your ancestral links in Santiniketan,” she wrote expressing solidarity with him in his fight against the “bigotry of the majoritarians” in the country, before finally assuring “we shall overcome.” Sen runs his research social foundation Pratichi Trust from his house.