India facing ‘possible collapse as a nation’, says Nobel laureate Amartya Sen

The biggest crisis that India is facing today is the “possible collapse as a nation”, Nobel laureate and renowned economist Amartya Sen said.

Speaking at the inauguration of Amartya Research Centre in Kolkata’s Salt Lake area, Sen said that people should work towards maintaining unity and added that divisions should not be made along religious lines.

“I think if someone asks me if I’m scared of something, I would say yes. There is a reason to be afraid now. The current situation in the country has become a cause for fear,” Hindustan Times quoted him as saying.

Read more: Calls for 'violent retribution' against Muslims in India after Hindu tailor beheading

“I want the country to be united. I don’t want division in a country that was historically liberal. We have to work together,” he added.

Sen further said, “The world came to know of Upanishads (philosophical-religious texts of Hinduism) because of a Muslim Prince. Dara Sikhoh, Shah Jahan’s son, learnt Sanskrit and translated some of the Upanishads into Persian.”

Asserting that India cannot belong only to the Hindus or to the Muslims, Sen stressed the need to stay united in line with the country’s traditions.

“India cannot be (a country) of Hindus only. Again, Muslims alone cannot make India. Everyone has to work together,” he added.

Analysts believe that the sitting political dispensation’s recourse to Hindutva has played havoc with the social fabric of the Indian society, and is ultimately posing threats to regional peace and security.

Also read: Indian SC orders Nupur Sharma to apologise for ‘setting the country on fire’

Recent Indian insinuations linking a Pakistani group to the suspects involved in the murder of a Hindu tailor — who put social media posts in support of the BJP spokeswoman making blasphemous remarks about the Holy Prophet of Islam (peace be upon him) — seems to be a ploy to avoid backlash at home.

A stock-taking of what is happening now for years in India reveals that it is the foul-mouthing of RSS-inspired extremist elements that is throwing communal peace to the wind. In doing so, these fanatics are least bothered about the sacrosanct sentiments of other religions, and it has become a fashion to ridicule Islam, in particular.

“This neo-Islamophobia at work in India is not out of a knee-jerk reaction but part of a detailed plot to fan violence and a sense of perpetual otherness for attaining vested political interests. The victim is the so-called secular system in India, as well as the heterogeneous population that is inching towards marginalization,” read a recent editorial published in The Express Tribune.