Amartya Sen will be speaking on what Bengal”s history tells us about living with multiple identities.
Not a free lecture i”m afraid - £10 at the British Museum today at 6:30 p.m.
“Bengal has arguably the longest history of engagement between East and West, stretching back over several centuries of settlement, with Calcutta once the capital city of the British in India. For Bengalis, the British were just one chapter in a long history of cultural exchange and accommodation. That history has seen a cultural heritage shared across faiths (in particular, Hinduism and Islam) and then split, in the twentieth century, across two nations: India and Bangladesh. How does this story of multiple identities - of faith, nation, culture - shed light on the challenges of globalisation in the twenty-first century as many Bengalis migrate across the sub-continent and across the globe? How do those diaspora identities, whether in Tower Hamlets or Delhi, refashion their past and what insights can history can offer for the increasing primacy of religious identity?“
Part of the Voices of Bengal season at the British Museum
I would love to be there! The history of Bengal fascinates me.
Me too! History of a lot of places fascinates me ( b4 Indian capitalist comes running with the ..oh you Leftist Bengali..type accusations!) I’d love to have been able to go to this one. I have some spies who might attend so *hopefully* we’ll get some feedback.
I actually went to a Tagore ‘musical’ evening at the British Museum which was being held as part of this season - and it was brilliant. Tagore poems set to a string quartet and a soprano.
Thanks to this so- called “longest history of engagement between East and West” the Bengalis today are dirt poor, most of them live in mud hovels, they have no law and order, no culture, no civilization.
And it is ideologues like Amartya Sen who are responsible for the plight of Bengalis. Amrtya is a communist. He is against forign investment in West Bengal, but he is not against forign investment that works to his own benifit.
In one lecture that Amartya gave in Calcutta, he is known to have said, “Private schools should be banned by law, because once the rich don’t have access to private schools they will contribute to the betterment of government schools.” (I don’t remember his exact words but this is what he meant).
If private schools are so bad, then why doesn’t Amartya himself work in a government school in Bengal. Why is he earning millions of dollars a year at Harvard? Like all communists Amartya too is a hypocrite, he preaches all sorts of things for the hapless Bengalis but he is too smart to practice what he preaches.
It is typical of Comrade Sonia to eulozize communists. After all she to is making millions like her good friend and comrade in arms Mr. Amrtya Sen, so she too can take it easy and continue to be hypocritical, while rest of the Bengalis who are not as smart and educated as Comrade Sonia starve.
Life is unfair….
I think he means eulogise. All of a sudden the Indian Capitalist is concerned about starving Bengalis. Comrade Sonia, there is hope for us yet.
Comrade Leighton,
Thank you for your feeble attempt at correcting me. But I insist that I meant “eulozize” and not eulogise. “Eulogise” is leftist english and that is why comrades like you are busy promoting it. Whereas “Eulozize” is capitalist English, all the US dictionaries spell it that way. Being a “pro-poor capitalist” it is natural that I spell it the way I do.
In my opinion these busybody organizations that hand out prizes like the Nobel Prize or the Booker award are the most evil organizations in the world.
In fact I would go on to call the Nobel Prize and the Booker awards the Taliban of English literature. Why? Because they are always trying to promote the worst aspects of literature and culture.
These organizations seek to bring down the level of development by awarding mediocirities like Amartya Sen, Arundhati Roy and Wangari Maathai. As a result of the publicity from these hiphop awards Amartya Sen becomes able to palm himself off as a great economist. Arundhati Roy and Wangari Maathai become noted environmentalists and wreck damage to the development projects in their own country.
The Nobel Prize organization and the Booker Prize organization should be disbanded for the same reason that the Taliban was disbanded. They are bad for the society because the promote mediocritiy.
Jai Shri Ram…
Comrade Leighton,
Sorry, I did make a typing error in the above post.
Actually the spelling is “Eulogize” .
i’m amused Indian Capitalist thinks i’m so rich and flattered im being compared to Sen. as for the rest of it- i had a good giggle on my tea break.
what a lot of laughs this whole blogging escapade is.
IF only this was in Canada! I definitely would’ve gone! Did you go btw?
I didn’t FOB - I unfortunately was fully booked up that weekend - but I heard it was good.
Shit I missed it!
I wonder if they would have any transcripts - I bet not but..
They have some interesting lectures coming up - I’ll make sure I post in advance this time : I should really have a whole page dedicated to events etc. I’ve been lax in covering the Moviementos Latin American nights. I’ve also just recently become a ‘Friend of the British Museum’ so can get in free for everything - yeah!
Here I am in Cambridge, MA desperate for a chance to run into Amartya Sen on the street, and he’s out there friggin lecturing in London! Unfair!
Was looking through your archives and found this post. My father met Amartya Sen recently at a lecture in Boston, MA. And even though my father is far far to the right of him politically (he’s a traditional old school Republican) he absolutely adored him. Said he was incredibly bright and engaging.