Educationists write to India's President Murmu protesting Amartya Sen's eviction notice

Over 300 eminent educationists from India and abroad have sent a joint statement to Indian President Droupadi Murmu seeking action against Vice-Chancellor of Visva Bharati University (VBU), Prof Bidyut Chakraborty allegedly for handing over eviction notice to Nobel laureate Amartya Sen.

The VBU VC had earlier asked the prominent economist to vacate a stretch of land which the institution alleged that he had been occupying illegally, reports Indian Express.

The Nobel Prize-winning economist George Akerlof, Koshland professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, was among the academics that wrote to the president. In 2001, Akerlof received the Nobel Prize along with Michael Spence and Joseph Stiglitz.

President Murmu is the paridarsaka (Visitor) of VBU, which has Prime Minister Narendra Modi is its chancellor.

"Such an illegal action of the University administration under the instruction of Professor Bidyut Chakrabarty can admit of no interpretation other than that he is trying to capitalise on the ideological differences that Professor Sen has with the ruling NDA government of India by accusing Prof Sen and that the vice-chancellor is wrongfully trying to get the support of the government as well as trying to shift the focus of the government on his misdeeds to some other issues which are imaginary…," the letter said.

VBU served Sen with an eviction notice in April, requesting him to vacate 13 decimals of land at his ancestral house, "Pratichi" in Birbhum district's Santiniketan. The university vowed to reclaim the land that it alleged was illegally occupied by Sen.

Sen's lawyers filed an appeal with the district court against the eviction ruling. The court has yet to make a decision on the topic. The next hearing in the matter is scheduled for 13 June.

"With the hope that your learned and judicious mind would surely be able to grasp the ill motives behind the action of Professor Bidyut Chakrabarty, we pray before your authority to kindly take appropriate action against him immediately," the letter said. 

The signatories of the letter included James K Boyce, Emeritus professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Janine Rodgers, alumna of Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva; Prabhat Patnaik, professor Emeritus at Jawaharlal Nehru University; and Rabindranath Tagore's descendant Supriya Tagore.