Nobel laureate Amartya Sen on Tuesday said he was “appalled” by the violence at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University. “I am appalled by what’s going on,” Sen said in Bengaluru, speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Infosys Prize.
“The university authorities cannot prevent outsiders from entering and creating such a bloody violence within the campus! I am also appalled that communication between police and the administration would be so delayed that ill treatment of the students could continue for some time and not been prevented by forces of law and order,” Sen said.
At least 34 students and teachers were injured on Sunday evening inside JNU, including the university’s students’ union president Aishe Ghosh. It was alleged that the Akhil Bharatiya Vidhyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the students’ wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) had led the attack, though the ABVP has denied it. In fact, the ABVP has alleged that the “Communist goons” had attacked them, though it is not clear how how many of their members were injured and how.
Sen also said that the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was unconstitutional and that the Supreme Court should turn it down. “You cannot have certain types of fundamental rights f human beings be related with religious differences rather than the things that really matter such as where you were born, and what the citizenship laws require you to do,” he was quoted saying.
Sen also said that there is need for sympathy. Speaking at the prize ceremony, he said that division between groups and sects not only damage social lives but works as barriers to intellectual progress, and added that “friendship is central to the development of knowledge”.
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