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| Prof. Amartya Sen receives honoris causa and also delivers the first Hyderabad Lecture at UoH |
After the investiture ceremony, Prof. Ramakrishna Ramaswamy,
Vice-Chancellor, UoH gave an introduction to the Hyderabad Lecture Series. The
Hyderabad Lecture Series has been initiated with support from an endowment
instituted at University of Hyderabad by Insurance Regulatory Development
Authority (IRDA). The Lecture Series hopes to be an important series of lecture
to contribute to the intellectual capacity of the Hyderabad city on issues of
contemporary interest.
The Lectures will be organized at various public
institutions in the twin cities. The Vice-Chancellor expressed his sincere
thanks to IRDA for this kind gesture. He also expressed his gratitude to Prof.
Sen to accept the invitation to deliver the first Hyderabad Lecture.
Prof. G. Nancharaiah, Dean, School of Economics presented a
glimpse of important contributions of Prof. Sen especially in the area of
economics.
In his lecture, Prof. Amartya Sen emphasized the importance
of dialogue as a solution to deal with day-to-day issues in public and social
life. He gave the example of Coffee House set up where people get a chance to
share their mind on issues and subjects that can’t be discussed in formal
settings like classrooms. These kind of informal settings are extremely
important to discuss about neglected issues and to bring about the change
through democratic means of discussion, voting etc. Students have obvious reasons to discuss
about many things and these informal discussion set-ups are necessary to
facilitate this very important activity, he added.
Speaking about the negligence of dalits, he mentioned that
it is a bigger issue in some parts of India compared to other parts of the
country and he finds himself on the side of dalit agitation. It is important to carry out the dalit
agitation in a well thought manner with persuasive power so as to involve
others to the centrality of issue.
He spoke about his comprehensive work on famine. It’s not
that people die only due to non-availability of food but it has more to do with
the economic ability of people to buy food.
Prof. Sen had donated his Nobel prize money to set up two
trusts one each in India and Bangladesh
that works on elementary schooling and inequality issues.
He also talked about how under nourishment of children
affect their overall development in the long run and has a long lasting
negative impact on development outcome of the country. It is important to have
right attitude for democracy and to facilitate public discussion, Prof. Sen
added.
Prof. Sen stated that democracy needs to have a foundation
of equity and mentioned about importance of judging economic progress in a more
meaningful and responsible sense. At the time of independence India’s annual
GDP growth rate was 3.5% and everyone rates this as very poor performance,
however, we should not forget that the country had an average annual GDP growth
of only 0.1% for first half of the 20th century, he added. He also emphasized
the need of a good political economy with sustained rise in economic growth for
two reasons. One, this would help people to have better economic capability to
lead a better life and second the high growth rate will also ensure higher
revenue income to the government that can be used for expenditure on public
utility. Prof. Sen further mentioned that main beneficiary of the government
subsidies have been bottom 20% of the top 20% population and not the people at
the lowest strata.
At times reality doesn’t match people’s perception; India
spends 1.2% of GDP on government health care and ranks at third or fourth
position from below in the list of 200 countries. Health care services carries with it the
issue of asymmetric information where service providers have better set of
information than the patients and so leaving it to run completely on market
mechanism cannot result in efficient outcome, said Prof. Sen. Countries like
Japan, Taiwan, Hongkong, China etc. have adopted universal health care and have
got enabling development outcomes on their economy and India must learn from
them. Prof. Sen mentioned about state’s involvement in providing proper health
care and education for its citizenry. In India, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh and
Tamil Nadu have focused on these areas and these steps are helping people to be
a part of the development process. It’s strange to see that these important
stories are not getting enough media attention and even people in general don’t
seem interested in demanding such information. He also mentioned that it’s not
appropriate to completely neglect the importance of market but the state
mechanism must act in areas where only the state can act.
Prof. Sen emphasized upon the importance of dialogue, debate
and argument. He also told that phrases such as neo-liberaldon’t make much
sense if it’s not discussed in appropriate context. Alternatively he emphasized
the need of institutional combination that really matters for development of a
nation and overall well-being of the citizenry in the true sense.
Stating that the dalit issue is very essential and serious
one, Prof. Sen mentioned about Dr. B R Ambedkar’s commandments – Educate,
Organize, Agitate – to bring the change in a democratic setup. He concluded his
lecture with the submission that it is the people’s ability to talk to each
other in a meaningful manner that makes all the difference in a democracy.
I had prepared this article originally for the UoH Herald. It's posted here: http://uohherald.commuoh.in/centrality-of-meaningful-public-dialogue-in-democracy/
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