The Hindu Business Line : Don’t’ lose focus of basic issues: Amartya Sen

Nobel Laureate Prof Amartya Sen hugs the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, after addressing the inaugural Professsor Hiren Mukherjee Memorial Parliamentary Lecture on ‘Demands of social justice’ at the Central Hall of Parliament House in New Delhi on Monday. —

Our Bureau

New Delhi, Aug. 11 Nobel Laurete Prof. Amartya Sen today cautioned against the emerging domination of new social agitations in India as they squander the focus on addressing fundamental economic disparities and lack of basic amenities to millions of people in the country.

Delivering the inaugural address of Prof. Hiren Mukerjee on “Demands of social justice” in the Central Hall of Parliament here, Prof. Sen called on the accent on a realisation-focused understanding of justice, as opposed to an arrangement-focused view of justice. He said the former approach makes it easy to see the importance of preventing ‘manifest injustice’ in the world, rather than dreaming about achieving some perfectly just society or about instituting some flawless set of social arrangements.

He cited “momentous manifestations” of severe injustice “in our own world today in India, such as appalling levels of continued child under-nourishment (almost unparalleled in the rest of the world), continuing lack of entitlement to basic medical attention of the poorer members of the society and the comprehensive absence of opportunities for basic schooling for a significant proportion of the population.”

He cautioned that the removal of long-standing deprivations of the disadvantaged people might in effect be hampered when the bulk of the social agitation is dominated by “new problems that generate immediate and vocal discontent, to the neglect of gigantic older problems of persistent deprivation of human lives, tolerated without much political protest”.

He pleaded that justice demands that “we make a strong effort to identify the overwhelming priorities that have to be confronted with total urgency”.

Shaping Inclusive growth

In his remarks the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, said that “when extreme dogmatism and fundamentalism are seeking to weaken the fabric and framework of liberalism that we value the most the intellectual contribution of scholars like Amartya Sen”.

He said Prof. Sen has been a passionate advocate of “inclusive growth and what we are trying to do in government is to give concrete shape to those ideas of what I would call ‘growth with a human face or growth with social justice”.

Dr Singh noted that these ideas and ideals had inspired the country’s national movement and they continue to inspire those “of us who occupy the ‘center’ space in Indian politics and walk the “Middle Path” on social, political and economic issues”.

In his welcome address, the Lok Sabha Speaker, Mr Somnath Chatterjee, said providing social and economic justice to the vast segments of people who have been kept out of the mainstream of our socio-political life should be among the core concerns of our country. He said it is a great challenge before national leadership to look beyond partisan and confrontational politics and to work unitedly to realise this unfulfilled promise of our freedom within the framework of a healthy democratic society.

Earlier, the Vice-President, Mr Mohammad Hamid Ansari, unveiled the portrait of Prof Hiren Mukerjee, a parliamentarian who distinguished himself by his adherence to democratic traditions.

More Stories on : Economy

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page