Amartya Sen
Amartya Kumar Sen (Bengali: [ˈɔmortːo ˈʃen]; born 3 November 1933) is an Indian economist and philosopher, who has taught and worked in the United Kingdom and the United States since 1972. Sen has made contributions to welfare economics, social choice theory, economic and social justice, economic theories of famines, decision theory, development economics, public health, and measures of well-being of countries.
Amartya Sen
He is currently a Thomas W. Lamont University Professor, and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University.[5] He formerly served as Master of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge.[6] In 1998, he was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences,[7] and in 1999, India's highest civilian honour — Bharat Ratna, for his contribution to welfare economics. The German Publishers and Booksellers Association awarded him the 2020 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade for his pioneering scholarship addressing issues of global justice and combating social inequality in education and healthcare.
Memberships and associations
He has served as president of the Econometric Society (1984), the International Economic Association (1986–1989), the Indian Economic Association (1989) and the American Economic Association (1994). He has also served as president of the Development Studies Association and the Human Development and Capability Association. He serves as the honorary director of the Academic Advisory Committee of the Center for Human and Economic Development Studies at Peking University in China.[38]
Sen has been called "the Conscience of the profession" and "the Mother Teresa of Economics"[39][40] for his work on famine, human development theory, welfare economics, the underlying mechanisms of poverty, gender inequality, and political liberalism. However, he denies the comparison to Mother Teresa, saying that he has never tried to follow a lifestyle of dedicated self-sacrifice.[41] Amartya Sen also added his voice to the campaign against the anti-gay Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code.[42]
Sen has served as Honorary Chairman of Oxfam, the UK based international development charity, and is now its Honorary Advisor.[43][44]
Sen is also a member of the Berggruen Institute's 21st Century Council.[45]
Sen is an Honorary Fellow of St Edmund's College, Cambridge.[46]
He is also one of the 25 leading figures on the Information and Democracy Commission launched by Reporters Without Borders.[47]
Media and culture
A 56-minute documentary named Amartya Sen: A Life Re-examined directed by Suman Ghosh details his life and work.[48][49] A documentary about Amartya Sen, titled The Argumentative Indian (the title of one of Sen's own books[50]), was released in 2017.[51]
A 2001 portrait of Sen by Annabel Cullen is in Trinity College's collection.[52] A 2003 portrait of Sen hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London.[53]
In 2011, he was present at the Rabindra Utsab ceremony at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre (BICC), Bangladesh. He unveiled the cover of Sruti Gitobitan, a Rabindrasangeet album comprising all the 2222 Tagore songs, brought out by Rezwana Chowdhury Bannya, principal of Shurer Dhara School of Music.[54]
Max Roser said that it was the work of Sen that made him create Our World in Data.[55]
Political views
Sen was critical of Indian politician Narendra Modi when he was announced as its prime ministerial candidate by the BJP. In April 2014, he said that Modi would not make a good Prime Minister.[56] He conceded later in December 2014 that Modi did give people a sense of faith that things can happen.[57] In February 2015, Sen opted out of seeking a second term for the chancellor post of Nalanda University, stating that the Government of India was not keen on him continuing in the post.[58]
In August 2019, during the clampdown and curfew in Kashmir for more than two weeks after the Indian revocation of Jammu and Kashmir's special status, Sen criticized the government and said "As an Indian, I am not proud of the fact that India, after having done so much to achieve a democratic norm in the world – where India was the first non-Western country to go for democracy – that we lose that reputation on the grounds of action that have been taken".[59][60] He regarded the detention of Kashmiri political leaders as "a classical colonial excuse" to prevent backlash against the Indian government's decision and called for a democratic solution that would involve Kashmiri people.[61]
Sen has spent much of his later life as a political writer and activist. He has been outspoken about Narendra Modi's leadership in India. In an interview with the New York Times, he claimed that Modi's fearmongering among the Indian people was anti-democratic. "The big thing that we know from John Stuart Mill is that democracy is government by discussion, and, if you make discussion fearful, you are not going to get a democracy, no matter how you count the votes." He disagreed with Modi's ideology of Hindu nationalism, and advocated for a more integrated and diverse ideology that reflects the heterogeneity of India.[62]
Sen also wrote an article for the New York Times documenting the reasons why India trails behind China in economic development. He advocates for healthcare reform, because low-income people in India have to deal with exploitative and inadequate private healthcare. He recommends India implement the same education policies that Japan did in the late 19th century. However, he realizes that there is a tradeoff between democracy and progress in Asia because democracy is a near reality in India and not in China.[63]
In a 1999 article in The Atlantic, Sen recommended for India a middle path between the "hard-knocks" development policy that creates wealth at the expense of civil liberties, and radical progressivism that only seeks to protect civil liberties at the expense of development. Rather than create an entirely new theory for ethical development in Asia, Sen sought to reform the current development model.[64]
Sen has received over 90 honorary degrees from universities around the world.[68] In 2019, London School of Economics announced the creation of the Amartya Sen Chair in Inequality Studies.[69]