In his first formal interview on the Indian election results, Professor Amartya Sen told Karan Thapar that the result is a rejection of the BJP’s Hindu Rashtra. In a spirited discussion, he added that the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, must apologise to India’s Muslim citizens for calling them infiltrators.
The following is the full text of the interview, edited lightly for syntax and clarity.
Hello and welcome to a special interview for The Wire and the latest in our occasional series of interviews with outstanding Indians on how they view the election results and how they view the third Modi government. And my guest today is truly special. He is a professor of Economics at Harvard University, a former master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and a Nobel laureate, Amartya Sen. Professor Sen, when you first found out that the BJP had lost its majority, that it had fallen to its worst result in ten years and cannot form a government without support from other parties, what were the first thoughts that went through your mind?
First thoughts were connected with the downfall of BJP, whether they got majority or not was in someways, a minor issue. Though, in fact, in politics, it is really very important. But I have this concern for a long time, how a country, India, which is a secular country, and I don’t mean only a secular state; a country which tolerates different religion, and is against terrorising minority groups, how they could take that. That I think, the election results indicated that there is local dislike about it, nowhere more so than the Hindi and the Hindu outland of united, and that was to me, a confirmation that I wasn’t mistaken in letting the country to believe ultimately secular and unhappy with imposing a rule on minority groups whereby there have to be under the sovereignty of the majority and activist Hindu rule.
So, you interpreted the result as a rejection of the BJP’s ambition to make India a ‘Hindu Rashtra’?
Absolutely so. And you know, if we go on discussing things, I would mention that there are a lot of faults of the BJP government including the enormous increase in inequality between the rich and the poor, a neglect of the interest of the poor; nowhere as clearly as seen the way the poor were treated at the time when the COVID epidemic devastated India. But I think the big thing to me was this recognition that India will not tolerate being a divided country whereby the minority are treated in a way that has no credit to the majority Hindu rule.
Now Narendra Modi has publicly claimed that he has a mandate for a third term. He insists that he has equaled Jawaharlal Nehru’s record of winning three consecutive terms. Do you accept that boast or do you think he’s exaggerating?
I think that’s really hokum because Jawaharlal Nehru had sequentially mandate to run the country as Prime Minister. Not that everything he did was right but somehow the population gave him the mandate to continue. The mandate that the Indian national have given to Modi is nothing like that. Modi doesn’t have the majority. Modi cannot govern without two parties with it, which are basically secular parties. So, I would say that that comparison is really completely inaccurate.
Now, during the campaign, Professor Sen, the prime minister claimed he was not of biological birth. He said he had been sent by God to God’s work. Do you accept that?
I will have difficulty accepting his story of that kind. No, I don’t accept that. To me, the interesting point isn’t whether it is true or not. Obviously, it is not true. The question is, how did it occur to the prime minister to make a claim as a rational like that to a country which is critically reflective of what leaders tells us.
Tell me something, what sort of man publicly proclaims he is not of biological birth. What sort of man publicly proclaims that he has been specially sent by God to do God’s work. Is this some sort of megalomaniac?
Well, it could either a megalomaniac or it could be a tendency towards delusion and delusion is not as uncommon as people tend to think. So, we have to know whether Modi himself believes in this extraordinary impossibly inaccurate story or whether he is using it in order to impress the population at large and if it is the former, then that indicates a certain lapse of mind and if it is the latter, it shows the level of cunning, which is not entirely appropriate for a democracy.
During the election campaign, the prime minister referred to India’s 200 million Muslim citizens as infiltrators. He said they have more children than the rest of us. He repeatedly alleged that they would benefit from reservations deliberately snatched from OBC’s, SC’s and ST’s. He’s been widely criticised for this, but the prime minister not only has not apologised, he’s made no explanation for what he said. How do you view these comments?
I think this is a case where we have to see the limitation of Modi’s mind because that kind of an extraordinarily nasty statement about 200 million of the citizens of the country, which he pretends to lead, would indicate that there is something deeply wrong in the thinking about India that the leader of the politics of India today seem to believe. So, I don’t know where to begin other than be upset and I am upset on behalf of my fellow citizens, Muslims, and Hindus, and Christians, and Jains, and Sikhs. It’s a terrible remark to make. You mentioned that the prime minster had not apologised for it. I think he should.
You think he should apologise to the country, in other words, you believe he owes the country an apology?
Yeah, of more than a billion people, 200 million are Muslim, he can’t get away insulting them and therefore, insulting us, because they are part of the citizenry of India and any attempt to deny that, change the citizenship law, all of which have been attempted, would be fraternal things. So, I think on behalf of Indian citizens, including Muslims, but not just Muslims, the citizenry in general has a right to demand that ‘we the citizens of India will not be insulted in this way.’
Professor Sen, what do you make of the fact that the government doesn’t have a single Muslim minister, not one? Equally importantly, what do you make of the fact that the National Democratic Alliance, the ruling alliance, doesn’t have a single Muslim Lok Sabha MP? What message is that sending out to India’s 200 million Muslim citizens?
It sends out the message that the leadership, it is not particularly fair-minded and does not want representation of Muslims in the government so far. It’s sad, not just for Muslims, it’s sad for citizens of India. In general, because we live in a country which is secular and which has fairness in mind and we already, despite all the difficulties that the electoral commission produced for the opposition and they were quite big including jailing two chief ministers, leaving one out in the last moment before the election, not giving time for the election. All that indicates a kind of power that India could not fouled of. Unfortunately, the leadership doesn’t seem to understand that, in addition to the reaction that it generated abroad, including in the United States, the fact is that the Indian population also ask the very question that you asked.
Now, after losing his majority, most people hoped the prime minister would be more consensual and less arrogant in his style. That’s clearly not the impression he’s given people in the last 20-25 days. He’s appointed the same ministers again. He’s defied the opposition over the issue of pro-term speaker Speaker and deputy speaker. He’s taunted the Congress over the emergency and the president’s address has boasted that big reforms are on the anvil when the budget will be announced. What does this tell you about the prime minister’s attitude and behaviour?
It indicates a lack of comprehension about what actually happened. Either a lack of comprehension or it was pretention. But I think the pretention is easy to understand if you had the majority and lose it and want people to think that you haven’t dropped it, then you will try to go on doing things in exactly the way that use to happen when you had the majority, the same minister, the same cabinet, the same other rulers and that is not surprising and in fact probably understandable as a political tactic. But it is certainly extraordinary that the voters verdict should not be reflected in the governance of the country.
Tell me, Professor Sen, how do you view the treatment of Arundhati Roy? She’s perhaps India’s most celebrated author but permission has been given to prosecute her under UAPA, which by the way, is a terrorist law, for something she allegedly said 14 years ago.
Well, I should start by saying that she is a very close friend, and I am a great admirer and obviously I’m more than a little angry, shocked about the way she is being treated. Had she not been a friend, I would have the same judgement. She is indeed a great writer; her writings have lit the world in many ways, right from the beginning. But I think what we have to recognise is that even if Arundhati had not been the extraordinarily creative person that she is, this action would have been just dead wrong. So, waking up something from 14 years ago and making a statement about terrorist propensity of any man or woman would be a very mean way of treating someone. What could be in the mind of the lieutenant Governor of Delhi, I just don’t know.
Would you say that this treatment of Arundhati Roy is perhaps the most worrying thing this government has done in its very brief 20-22 day third term?
No, I wouldn’t say that because that must mean the others are little but which they are not. I think the treatment of Muslim and the ease with which Muslims have been ill-treated and sometimes killed to save cattle or perceived threat indicates enormous laxity of judicial standard on part of the government. Arundhati’s treatment and thereby, emphasizing again she’s a very close friend, it’s a terrible thing but it’s not uniquely the most terrible thing.
Now, Professor Sen, at the moment, India faces two big crises which are matters of great concern to the Indian people. I am talking firstly of the conduct of eligibility exams; NEET is only one of them but apparently there have been 70 exams in the last seven years which have gone badly wrong. The second big crisis is Manipur has been in a state of ferment for nearly 14 months. The prime minister has ignored both. He’s had nothing to say in public about either after his re-election and the president’s address was silent on both. How do you interpret this silence on issues that matter enormously to the Indian people?
Well, I think that indicates what many of us had suspected for a long time, namely long time of the governance by the present ruling party and it is that there is lack of essence of justice. The exam crisis indicates there is lack of both regularity as well as fair play. All these are issues. But Karan, let me take this opportunity, I know that you haven’t asked me a question on that, but I know that you have limited time. The sensitive subject has come up, the government is often talking about environment problem, and I think it should because the environment situation in India is dreadful. But I think the big thing to recognise is that the educability of people is very important or education of people, I would say, is very important for finding employment. Education and healthcare are a thing that has played a big part in Europe in the industrialisation. Education and healthcare plays a big part in America, plays a big part in Japan, plays a big part in China, South Korea and so on, and India has missed that. Somehow the ability to catch up on India’s educational and health deficit is one of the biggest failures of the government. Now, the failure, I should say didn’t begin with the BJP. I think the previous government had also been neglectful of education and healthcare of common people and I have written and lectured on that, many times. When they had an opportunity to correct the neglect that was clearly visible, instead of that, going for employment as it stood, a freestanding object not dependent on how people are educated, how healthy they are would be a very big mistake. Not surprising that the only thing India has been able to achieve has been important in the tertiary sector, in help, in services but not the manufacturing, and the agriculture, not a big progress. So. I would say that there are issues that go beyond the exam, and they are a terrible neglect on part of the government, but there are bigger issues.
Would you accept, Professor Sen, the government’s disregard for or even I would say, deliberate ignoring of healthcare and education is going to make a mockery of the prime minister’s boast of Viksit Bharat by 1947. We cannot become one of the world’s developed countries if our people remain unhealthy and uneducated. That has to be the primary first step.
I absolutely agree. And here, I must say, what worries me, is not only things not happening, but things not being even talked of, and that indicates a level of neglect of the central engines of development as we know from the experience of every country which has succeeded in the world. You used the word mockery, I didn’t, but I’d be happy to. We all are with you to say that there would be mockery involved.
Let me end this interview by putting two simple questions to you. The prime minister repeatedly says that India is a ‘Vishwa Guru’, he made the president in the president’s address claim that India has been recognised and its stature had been acknowledged by the G7 in Italy a couple of weeks ago. So, tell me, as a Harvard professor, as a former master of Trinity College, Cambridge, as a Nobel laureate, how does the world view Narendra Modi and how the world view India under Narendra Modi?
Well, that’s a very difficult question. I think Narendra Modi who was viewed very negatively after the Gujarat episode in 2022, but the fact is that Narendra Modi has also been quite successful in propagating his view. That’s actually beginning to get unstopped, and the electoral verdict is adding to that. I think Narendra Modi is viewed right now in a way that’s fragile and that fragility has to reflect something really important; namely India has neglected those things that makes a country successful and respectable. They fail on that, and we must hope that when the political change comes, these issues will be addressed.
If Modi is prime minister for the next five years and continues the way he seems to have begun, what would be the apprehensions and fears you have for India?
At one stage I was very worried that Modi’s depiction of India as a Hindu country was being somehow absorbed by people. I’m less concerned about that now. Because in the vote, the election that’s taken recently, the voters have indicated that the illusion is beginning to fall flat on people’s credibility. So, I think, I would expect if it continues the way it is going, you say what would happen? But I hope it doesn’t continue like that because we need all the things he’s neglected which is education, healthcare, a sense of justice, an aversion to inequality, and the treatment of majority with minority in an even-handed way. We want all of these, if Modi is able to deliver them, I would be very happy. I don’t expect that will happen so I can only be skeptical in answering your question.
Professor Sen, thank you very much for the time that you have given me and thank you very much for sharing your thoughts on the election result and the third Modi government. Take care. Stay safe.
Thank you.
