Bengal BJP leaders wonder if Prof Amartya Sen ‘understands’ Bengali culture

Nobel Laureate Prof Amartya Sen delivered a lecture on Friday at Jadavpur University in Kolkata, where he had started the Economics department at the age of 23. The innocuous subject of his lecture was “ Kolkata after Independence”.

But once the House was thrown open for questions, a member of the audience sought his opinion on the chant, ‘ Jai Shri Ram’ used increasingly in the state by the BJP as a political slogan. Since Prof Sen had spoken about communal riots in Kolkata before and after independence, he was also asked if he found similarities between then and now.

His reply, delivered in Bengali, was paraphrased by The Telegraph as follows:

“First of all, to my knowledge 'Jai Shri Ram' is not a very traditional Bengali chant. It's a recent import. People are asked to chant it as a ploy for beating them. It's not as though it has a connection with Bengali civilisation. Like, for instance, Ram Navami; I hear that Ram Navami is being observed widely in Calcutta nowadays. Haven't heard of it being observed earlier. The other day, I asked my four-year-old granddaughter who was her favourite among the gods and goddesses she saw. She took a while and said: Maa Durga. So, the stature that Maa Durga enjoys here cannot be compared to Ram Navami…. These are recent imports to wage a war.”

Soon after newspapers reported this on Saturday, BJP leaders reacted with indignation and pointed out that the Nobel Laureate should have known that the 15th Century Bengali poet Krittibas Ojha had translated the Ramayan into Bengali and as such Ram has been an integral part of ‘Bengali culture’. Others jumped in to mention the ritual of ‘Okal Bodhon’ associated with the worship of goddess Durga, during which 108 lotus flowers are offered.

Union Minister from Bengal Babul Supriyo tweeted, “ It’s Sir’s age speaking not his mind or else he wud hv understood that, in Bengal ‘JaiShreeRam’ is more a symbolic phrase of protest than it is about religion! #JaiShreeRam is surely not used “to beat people up” rather it’s to stand up against those who torture

West Bengal BJP President Dilip Ghosh, whose own knowledge about Bengali culture and scholarship is often questioned, told news agency ANI that Amartya Sen probably “doesn’t know Bengal. Does he know about Bengali or Indian culture? Jai Shri Ram is chanted in very village. Now entire Bengal says it.”

Other right-wing trolls indignantly asked, “Then what is associated with Bengali culture? Didi's fascism? TMC's Talibani Mindset of killing opponents? Or taking cut money?” Some went off on a tangent and attacked Sen’s alleged financial irregularities, which have been proved to be false, and ridicule him as this tweet : “ Here’s Economist Amartya Sen’s free advice on religion. Man behind More than 2300cr scam at Nalanda University, this is nothing but an old man's tricks to grab attention.”

Pro-BJP commentator and former editor Kanchan Gupta also offered gratuitous advice in a string of tweets which can be seen here:

Professor Sen, however was right in pointing out that ‘Ram Navami’ celebrations and chants of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ were not widespread in Bengal. He casually mentioned asking his four-year old granddaughter which god or goddess she liked and the child after some thought responded by saying, ‘ Ma Durga’.

And he was undoubtedly referring to a string of incidents across North and eastern India when minorities were forced to chant ‘ Jai Shri Ram’ and some of them were lynched even after chanting it. Some BJP members had raised the slogan even in the Lok Sabha while opposition members were taking oath, vindicating Prof Sen’s comment that the slogan was a war cry, imported to Bengal and raised as a political slogan.