In a short letter sent to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee by email, Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen thanked Mamata for supporting people like him who are under attack.
“I am very happy indeed to get your supportive letter. I am not only most touched, but also very reassured that despite the busy life you have to lead, you can find time for reassuring people under attack. Your strong voice, along with your full understanding of what is going on, is, for me, a tremendous source of strength,” Sen wrote.
Mamata expressed her support to Sen on the row over his family being in “illegal” possession of land at Visva-Bharati.
Visva-Bharati has recently written to the West Bengal government claiming that dozens of land parcels owned by it were wrongfully recorded in the names of private parties including Sen.
On Friday, Bengal CM wrote a letter to Sen and slammed the BJP for “levelling baseless allegations” against him. “We all salute Amartya Sen. Just because he isn’t inclined towards BJP’s ideology, they are levelling such allegations against him,” she had said.
Sen, in a media statement late Friday, said the entire land occupied by him on the hallowed campus was registered on a long-term lease that was nowhere close to expiry.
“I could comment on the big gap between Shantiniketan culture and that of the V.C., empowered as he is by the central government in Delhi with its growing control over Bengal,” Sen wrote.
