India badly needs tolerance: Amartya Sen

Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen on Wednesday said that the country badly needed tolerance. Prof. Sen was speaking at the special convocation of Presidency University which conferred D.Litt. upon him on Wednesday. Strongly advocating educational institutions’ autonomy, Prof. Sen pointed out that the Presidency University needed the “help” of the state government but it should never try to “dominate” the institution.

“The general idea was to accept any kind of belief that comes from any side. Tolerance is a very great virtue and right now in India we need it very badly. In addition to that, there is a need for sceptical tolerance which was one of the things Derozio had. He did not have enmity for any group but questions for every group,” Prof. Sen said while talking about his college days at Presidency University. He is adviser to the chairman of Presidency University Mentor Group. During his convocation address, the Nobel Laureate also said that democracy was not just about the majoritarian rule. “Now if you think about India, when we say that democracy may be under some threat, what are the issues Well first of all, democracy is not just a majoritarian rule, it also involves minority rights, it involves liberty and liberty of expressions and so on.”

“Secondly, what is now called a majority is not in fact majority. It is mostly plurality. You might get 30 or 39 per cent and then you sweep the Parliament because the Indian Constitution makers were aware of that, they discussed that in the Constituent Assembly. They did not talk so much that minority could become a majority in Parliament but discussed that the Upper House having a status of its own,” he said.

On the autonomy of the university, he said, “Presidency would certainly want the government’s help, but (it should) not (be) dominant.”

We have to cultivate the highest quality of education, elitism in that sense but detachment from the society would not work.”

He also emphasised on he need to address the “major issues” in the society but not at the cost of disturbing the academic environment at the university. “When we live in a society where there are major issues to be addressed and we have to address that not as a government college. Presidency has to ask constantly are we relevant in India or in the world. What we can we do We live in very difficult times with violence, with battle against hunger undernourishment, illiteracy and lack of education and bad education at the school level being the dominating feature of the country,” he added.