Forbes India: In 1999, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance honoured the scholar, economist, and philosopher Amartya Sen with India’s highest honour, the Bharat Ratna, a year after his Nobel Prize. One of Sen’s more interesting books is The Argumentative Indian (2006), celebrating our propensity to challenge views we disagree with. Indians argue with one another, he says, and from those dynamic encounters new ideas synthesising different viewpoints emerge, making unity in diversity possible in this complicated nation.

In July this year, in response to a question from a journalist, Sen said he would not support Narendra Modi, Gujarat’s chief minister, to be India’s Prime Minister; he believes Modi fails the secularism test, which he sees as a necessary precondition to govern a country as diverse as India.

Insults came thick and fast from some of Modi’s supporters, some saying Sen had no right to express views on Indian politics (he remains an Indian citizen, although he has spent the bulk of his life abroad). Photographs emerged on the internet of a partly-clad young woman, purportedly Sen’s daughter Nandana, an actress. Sen was admonished to control his daughter before telling India who should govern the country. The photograph went viral, appearing on websites supporting the BJP. The BJP distanced itself somewhat from the insults, but one of its parliamentarians, Chandan Mitra (who edits the newspaper The Pioneer) said on Twitter: “Next NDA Government must strip him of Bharat Ratna.” Sen agreed to return the honour if Atal Bihari Vajpayee, under whose tenure Sen was honoured, were to demand its return. A day later, Mitra, who has a PhD from Oxford, expressed his regrets, particularly after the intellectual class turned against him.

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