Amartya Sen's desperate attempt to defend Singur with his flawed readings on industrialization

Dr. Malay Chaudhuri
Founder - Director, IIPM & Author of the Best Seller ‘The Great Indian Dream

[September, 2006]

Amartya Sen is no ordinary economist. What he says is eagerly read... specially in West Bengal. In his recent interviews and comments he claims that his knowledge on industrialisation of Calcutta spans over centuries going back to the times of Fa Hien- who came by boat in 401 AD to Tamralipta, which is very close to Calcutta (that Calcutta was however founded only 300 years ago by Job Charnock seems a matter of least importance to him!). Amartya Sen is confident, based on the observations by Fa Hien that there was an industrial area around Calcutta long before industrialisation happened anywhere else! His knowledge on industrialisation it seems covers vast expanse... from Pittsburg in USA to Manchester or Lancashire in UK, even spanning continents, including Australia and Canada. He therefore concludes that everywhere industry was founded on fertile agricultural land. Being close to the Left Front, he thus also certifies, “Jyotibabu was aware of the problem and Buddhadev Bhattacharjee is trying to carry the understanding forward by trying to make it possible by having a big industrial base” around Calcutta.

As a professor of great repute, he has further awarded 'fail marks' to the opposition, as he believes, that the opposition wants to prevent industrialisation of Bengal and does not look enough at the interest of the people of the state. It seems however that in spite of his studies on Singur, he has missed to note what the opposition actually wants. Even if they are against locating Tata Motors in Singur, the opposition suggested many alternative locations, which do not necessarily ignore market forces. His pathetic dislike of the opposition leads him to feel that they are against industrialisation, thereby supporting the propagandist line of the Left Front.

In his zeal to please the Left Front in Bengal, his perception on industrialisation, based on readings spanning centuries and continents, has however overlooked one essential point of globalisation process- the one which has resulted in “death of distance”. This in turn has immensely reduced the proportionate cost of transport to the total value of goods being transported from one point to any other point in the world. In the globalised world there are almost always multi location outsourcing of parts & raw materials from around the globe as well as multi locations of consuming markets across the world. Thereby it has made almost all industries 'footloose'. And that's exactly why, Japanese car-makers can compete producing cars in Japan and selling in American markets. Similarly, China is today the manufacturing hub of the world and American consumers purchase 40% of their consumer goods made in China (low Chinese labour cost is also a contributing factor, though). It therefore is common sense that Tata's noble dream car, whether made in Singur, Kharagpur or Bankura, can be offered to consumers in Calcutta and more specifically anywhere else in India and around the world, at a price not substantially different from the price that it would command if it was to be produced in Singur. In any case Tata's small car project is being so heavily subsidised by West Bengal government that we cannot say Tata is fairly competing with market forces.
In his desperation to defend the Left Front on the Singur issue and come out with ludicrous explanations for the same, Amartya Sen has noted that even Gandhi, a Gujarati, saw theatres twice during his six days' short stay in Calcutta. He feels that engineers will find it difficult to stay away from Calcutta, which has such tremendous cultural attractions. Therefore, Tata's decision to locate industry near Calcutta is justified to attract culturally addicted managers and engineers. He however seems to have ignored the fat pay that engineers and managers these days command. They can easily afford to participate in Calcutta's cultural life even if they reside in Kharagpur or Bankura and can as well organise comparable cultural life in their own industrial township. Therefore, cultural attractions of Calcutta in support of locating industry around Calcutta is as weak as an  argument can get on such an issue.

Amartya Sen has gone further on to condemn violent activities of the opposition by creating 'free regions'. By 'free regions' he obviously has Nandigram in mind. He however makes no comment on the violence practised by CPM's cadres and the police force under their command in Nandigram. He manipulatively justifies his avoidance of issues in Nandigram saying he has not studied Nandigram as well as he has studied Singur. It is a pity that even after getting a Nobel Prize he still speaks to please vested interests rather than speaking the truth and justifying his intelligence, education and the commitment to the poor that he apparently has. One can only conclude that his desperate eloquence on Singur speaks volumes about his mindset. His silence on the shameful events of Nandigram speak equally about the same.

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