Amartya Sen Has A Message For Opposition Protesting CAA: Here’s What He Said

Days after claiming Citizenship Amendment Act violates Constitutional provisions, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen on Monday stressed on opposition unity to carry out any protest for a cause. “For any kind of protest, opposition unity is important. Then protests become easier. Unity is important if the protest is for a proper cause,” Sen told journalists on Monday night. 

“But even if unity is not there, then that doesn’t mean we will stop protesting. As I said, unity makes protest easier but if unity is not there still, we have to move on and do whatever is necessary,” Sen said. 

Amartya Sen was answering journalists over the countrywide CAA-NPR-NRC protests. 

Shashi Tharoor backs Amartya Sen

Backing Amartya Sen's statement, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor tweeted, “Amartyaji is right. The problem is that the Opposition parties are agreed on national issues, but divided in their various states. This is why it is difficult to assemble all of them on a common platform or front; they tend to put their local interests first. So BJP wins w/ 37% (sic).”

Amartya Sen on CAA

Last week, Sen had said, CAA law that has been passed in my judgment should be turned down by the Supreme Court on the grounds of it being unconstitutional because you cannot have certain types of fundamental human rights linking citizenship with religious differences.

Explaining further, Sen said citizenship on the basis of religion has been a matter of discussion in the constituent assembly where it was decided that “using religion for the purpose of discrimination of this kind will not be acceptable.”

Sen, however, agreed that a Hindu treated badly in a country outside India deserves sympathy and his case must be taken into account.

“It (consideration for citizenship) has to be independent, of religion but take cognisance of the sufferings and other issues into account,” Sen had said.