The Urgency of Secularism: Amartya Sen and Yogendra Yadav

LSE South Asia Centre brings to you a unique and insightful discussion on the urgency of secularism in India with Amartya Sen and Yogendra Yadav, moderated by Mukulika Banerjee. Event held on June 6, 2018.
Amartya Sen is Thomas W Lamont University Professor, and Professor of Economics & Philosophy, Harvard University.
Yogendra Yadav (@_YogendraYadav) is the National President of ‘Swaraj India’, a newly-formed political party.
Mukulika Banerjee (@MukulikaB) is Director of the South Asia Centre, and Associate Professor in Anthropology at LSE.

[@shauniriya7691]

The One of the Two greatest people in one stage - Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen and Philanthropist Yogendra Yadav 😍

[@SiddharthYadavgrenedier]

Either we have secular India or we don't have India at all!

[@yank3656]

thanks for sharing South Asia Centre LSE

[@arishkhan-lz8yz]

amritya sen missed yogendra yadav 's point , that we need political sadhus or pracharaks. noam chomsky has said the only solution to problems we are facing is organising , that is bringing people together. protseting , and communicating to the so called other whoever he is wherever he may be, laying a common ground , political pracharaks is one way of doing it. any intellectual who is not involved in activism is not a real intellectual in my opinion.

[@takheltombaningthouja1324]

Edn on universal tradition and universal politics needed in indian context

[@kesari9852]

Could the administrator please upload the transcript of the above conversation.Prof.Sen is not very clearly heard(may be because of the quality of the recording or may be of his old age).A transcript would be much appreciated.Thank you

[@ashishkulkarni4165]

He is brown sahib

[@abdulm3668]

Very good civilised Debate unlike Indian TV channels who are full of shit I would like to thank the person who has organised this debate and the person who has uploaded this video on KZbin thank you. very much. JOY BANGLA!

[@mksingh79]

Nobody wants to talk about the reason why according To Yogendra causes Hindu anxiety or anxiety of hindus. Let me put them out here 1) fear of muslim taking over 2) fear of imposition of sharia law if that happens 3) same thing happening to hindus what happened to kashmiri pandits . The world is seeing what happens when muslims start dominating for eg in the UK and france and belgium and germany and sweden and denmark No one is even trying go answer these questions. Yogendra tried but could not get an answer. I have grappled with these questions for a long time and i dont have an answer and i dont see any discussion on These points between our parties. They are qyick to take quick jabs at each other to get brownie points but not deal with the cause of the angst in the hindus. How can i, as a individual, reconcile with what is going on in the world and our push for becoming and reinforcing secularism in India.

[@amitnagis]

Here’s how: average Bangladeshi, Indian, Sri Lankan, Indonesian or for that matter Chechan muslim is very different from Middle eastern muslim. Even the religious practices vary quite a lot. Once you recognise this you don’t paint everyone with the same brush. Make no mistake the religious clergy in all these countries are quite under the grip of imperialist and chauvinistic middle-eastern ideas. Separately, it is easy to fall prey to labels. Just as you may label problems in Europe as muslim problems. Racists in Europe call it immigrant problem. Someone else might call it a brown problem etc. Nuance is important.

[@mksingh79]

Amit Nag I agree. I was only commenting on my observation that people are unwilling to openly talk about it even when a lot of people make the same mistake as you explained.

[@ManishKumar-uf9tx]

manish singh I would urge you to listen Mr. Yogendra Yadav's conversation with Cineink on secularism. There he has clearly targeted and differentiated the kind of appeasement you're talking about, it's not the appeasement of Muslim Community rather Muslim Clergies (Mullahs). And no, Muslims are not taking over. Actually, they are one of the most insecure religious minority simply because of the fact that so called secular parties ripped from fear mongering, feeding on their insecurities. And I hope that Sharia law must not get imposed. But if at all, then it would only work on Muslim population. Then again it explains the bigotry of secular parties (empowering Mullahs and their orthodoxy). Hindu Muslim riots are generally manufactured for political gains which benefits the political parties from both spectrum. Sorry to say sir, you're not being objective here.

[@RohitSingh-nm9wd]

Dnt comment here with half knowledge u have. Study the history of muslim people since 2 centuries, there struggles and the reason for the rise of extremists. And what current scenarios in india by manipulating information is doing is creating hindu extremists. If it goes on like this we will become what we didn't wanted to see

[@erenyeager4452]

@@RohitSingh-nm9wd shut up

[@mridulagrawal6687]

Talking about idea of India,idea of India,not knowing that every Indian has his/her idea of India,whose idea of India r u referring to,India didn't become a nation in 47 r 50,it became only a republic,India is a 5000yrs old country

[@brachisaurous]

its urgent, or life will end as we know...no really! lol

[@MarjorieBakre]

Indeed so. Secularism (and equaliyy) as defined y outdated western political and social thinkers was to suit the convenience of colonialists to impose their absurd and harmful notions of amoral polity and society on the rest of the world even after their trial for more than too centuries has shown that in practice they result in disunity of nations and cukturalbdesttuction leading yo serious weakening of peoples will power to ensure prosperity and peace for all. The two main speakers are motivated by sheer desire to capture more glamour and phony accolades from their limited circle of admirers. Point out one country - ither than India - with any single religious minority individually exceeding 15 or even 10 per cent of total popln. Islamist and Christian religious bigotry never accepts secularism and diversity of forms of democracy-- the most serious cause of wars and terrorism all over the world. Islamist Pakistan separated due to intokerance in the Muslim majority areas but furtger split due to dominance of tge tgen West Pakustan iver East Pakistan. which became Bangladesh. Amorto da-s birth in a Banglafesh town dies nit mske him automatically a wirld citizen. He featgered his nest as academuc in Delhi and got a Swedish riyal bank orize in economjcs which he utikused to join the Harvard facukty. Nice sounding academic, armchair entertainmemt with articulated nonsense in imperious tone -- unrelated to the reakities of a workd changing on unpredictable trajectory due to technology and tge best scientific brains of mankind. Tge workd eould be better for all economic buffoonery being ignoted as dusturbing noise. Science and technology PLYS a united, udeology free world government sustained on the basis of the common spiritual and emotional bonds if all mankind and fellow species MINUS economic theirising.

[@samarnathtewari7048]

Hypocrites.

[@sandeeptyagi5531]

In any case amartya sen is anti hindu.not worth listening to his idiotic talk.