In his first formal interview on the Indian election results and the third Modi government, Professor Amartya Sen has said that the result is a rejection of the BJP’s Hindu Rashtra and then, pointedly and at some length, added that the Prime Minister must apologise to India’s Muslim citizens for calling them infiltrators. He said it was “a terrible remark to make”.
In a 27-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, Sen, a Professor at Harvard University, a former Master of Trinity College, Cambridge and a Nobel Laureate, said of the Prime Minister: “He can’t get away with insulting 200 million Muslims and, therefore, insulting us”. Sen said the Prime Minister’s comments about Muslims suggest “the limitations of Modi’s mind”. He added there is “something deeply worrying about his thinking of India”.
Asked whether he accepted Narendra Modi’s claim that he is not of biological birth but has been sent by God to do God’s work, Sen said that this was either “megalomania” or “delusion”.
Asked whether he accepted the Prime Minister’s boast that he has equaled Jawaharlal Nehru’s record of winning three consecutive terms, Sen called it “hokum”.
Sen said the seemingly defiant and still arrogant manner in which the Prime Minister was conducting himself as well as speaking about the Opposition, despite losing his majority in the Lok Sabha, suggests “a lack of comprehension of what actually happened”.
Prof. Sen said the government’s treatment of Arundhati Roy is “just dead wrong”. He said he was “more than a little angry” adding he was “shocked”.
