Sen began his school education atSt Gregory's School inDhaka in 1940. In the fall of 1941, he was admitted toPatha Bhavana, Santiniketan, where he completed his school education. The school had many progressive features, such as distaste for examinations or competitive testing. In addition, the school stressed cultural diversity, and embraced cultural influences from the rest of the world.[19] In 1951, he went toPresidency College, Calcutta, where he earned a BA in economics with First in the First Class, with a minor in Mathematics, as a graduating student of theUniversity of Calcutta. While at Presidency, Sen was diagnosed with oral cancer, and given a 15 per cent chance of living five years.[20] With radiation treatment, he survived, and in 1953 he moved toTrinity College, Cambridge, where he earned a second BA in economics in 1955 with a first class, topping the list as well. At this time, he was elected President of theCambridge Majlis.[21] While Sen was officially a PhD student at Cambridge (though he had finished his research in 1955–56), he was offered the position of First-Professor and First-Head of the Economics Department of the newly createdJadavpur University inCalcutta. Appointed to the position at age 22, he is still the youngest chairman to have headed the Department of Economics. He served in that position, starting the new Economics Department, from 1956 to 1958.[22]
Meanwhile, Sen was elected to a Prize Fellowship at Trinity College, which gave him four years to study any subject; he made the decision to studyphilosophy. Sen explained: "The broadening of my studies into philosophy was important for me not just because some of my main areas of interest in economics relate quite closely to philosophical disciplines (for example,social choice theory makes intense use ofmathematical logic and also draws onmoral philosophy, and so does the study of inequality and deprivation), but also because I found philosophical studies very rewarding on their own."[23] His interest in philosophy, however, dates back to his college days at Presidency, where he read books on philosophy and debated philosophical themes. One of the books he was most interested in wasKenneth Arrow'sSocial Choice and Individual Values.[24]
In Cambridge, there were major debates between supporters ofKeynesian economics, and the neo-classical economists who were sceptical of Keynes. Because of a lack of enthusiasm for social choice theory in both Trinity and Cambridge, Sen chose a different subject for hisPhD thesis, which was on "The Choice of Techniques" in 1959. The work had been completed earlier, except for advice from his adjunct supervisor in India,A. K. Dasgupta, given to Sen while teaching and revising his work at Jadavpur, under the supervision of the "brilliant but vigorously intolerant"post-KeynesianJoan Robinson.[25]Quentin Skinner notes that Sen was a member of the secret societyCambridge Apostles during his time at Cambridge.[26]
Sen giving the inaugural parliamentary lecture atParliament House in New Delhi
Social choice theory
Sen's work on 'Choice of Techniques' complemented that ofMaurice Dobb. In a developing country, the Dobb-Sen strategy relied on maximising investible surpluses, maintaining constant real wages and using the entire increase in labour productivity, due to technological change, to raise the rate of accumulation. In other words, workers were expected to demand no improvement in their standard of living despite having become more productive.Sen's papers in the late 1960s and early 1970s helped develop the theory ofsocial choice, which first came to prominence in the work by the American economistKenneth Arrow. Arrow had most famously shown that when voters have three or more distinct alternatives (options), anyranked ordervoting system will in at least some situations inevitably conflict with what many assume to be basic democratic norms. Sen's contribution to the literature was to show under what conditionsArrow's impossibility theorem[28] applied, as well as to extend and enrich the theory of social choice, informed by his interests inhistory of economic thought and philosophy.[29]
Liberal Paradox
In 1970, Sen published his paper "The Impossibility of a Paretian Liberal," which introduced the "liberal paradox", also sometimes . This paradox shows that no means of aggregating individual preferences into a single, social choice, can simultaneously fulfill the following, seemingly mild conditions: unrestricted domain, the weak Pareto principle, and a minimal requirement of individual rights. Pareto efficiency dictates that if every individual in a society prefers option A to option B, the society as a whole should also prefer A. Minimal liberalism suggests that individuals should have the decisive right to make choices in purely personal matters, such as what to read or how to dress.[30]
Sen illustrated the result using a hypothetical example involving two individuals (“Lewd” and “Prude”) and three social states: one person reading a particular book, the other reading, or neither reading. Prude thinks that the book is indecent and that it should be disposed of, unread. However, if someone must read it, Prude would prefer to read it rather than Lewd since Prude thinks it would be even worse for someone to read and enjoy the book rather than read it in disgust. Given these preferences of the two individuals in the society, a social planner must decide what to do. Should the planner force Lewd to read the book, force Prude to read the book or let it go unread? Under this decisiveness assignment, society would generate cyclic collective preferences, violating acyclicity (or transitivity) of social ordering.[31][32]
This paradox, now known as the “liberal paradox,” demonstrates a conflict between individual rights and social efficiency: ensuring minimal individual liberty may force the violation of Pareto-style aggregation consistency.
Poverty and Famines (1981)
In 1981, Sen publishedPoverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (1981), a book in which he argued that famine occurs not only from a lack of food, but from inequalities built into mechanisms for distributing food. Sen also argued that the Bengal famine was caused by an urban economic boom that raisedfood prices, thereby causing millions of rural workers to starve to death when their wages did not keep up.[33] In 1999 he wrote, "no famine has ever taken place ... in a functioning democracy".[34]
In addition to his important work on the causes of famines, Sen's work in the field of development economics has had considerable influence in the formulation of the "Human Development Report",[35] published by theUnited Nations Development Programme.[36] This annual publication that ranks countries on a variety of economic and social indicators owes much to the contributions by Sen among other social choice theorists in the area of economic measurement of poverty and inequality.[35]
"Equality of What?" (1979)
Sen's revolutionary contribution to development economics and social indicators is the concept of "capability" developed in his article "Equality of What?".[37] He argues that governments should be measured against the concrete capabilities of their citizens. This is because top-down development will always trumphuman rights as long as the definition of terms remains in doubt (is a "right" something that must be provided or something that simply cannot be taken away?). For instance, in the United States citizens have a right to vote. To Sen, this concept is fairly empty. In order for citizens to have a capacity to vote, they first must have "functionings". These "functionings" can range from the very broad, such as the availability of education, to the very specific, such as transportation to thepolls. Only when such barriers are removed can the citizen truly be said to act out of personal choice. It is up to the individual society to make the list of minimum capabilities guaranteed by that society. For an example of the "capabilities approach" in practice, seeMartha Nussbaum'sWomen and Human Development.[38]
"More than 100 Million Women Are Missing" (1990)
He wrote a controversial article inThe New York Review of Books entitled "More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing" (seeMissing women of Asia), analysing the mortality impact of unequal rights between the genders in the developing world, particularly Asia.[39] Other studies, including one byEmily Oster, had argued that this is an overestimation, though Oster has since then recanted her conclusions.[40]
In 1999, Sen further advanced and redefined the capability approach in his bookDevelopment as Freedom.[41] Sen argued that development should be viewed as an effort to advance the real freedoms that individuals enjoy, rather than simply focusing on metrics such as GDP or income-per-capita.
Sen was inspired by violent acts he had witnessed as a child leading up to the Partition of India in 1947. On one morning, a Muslim daily labourer named Kader Mia stumbled through the rear gate of Sen's family home, bleeding from a knife wound in his back. Because of his extreme poverty, he had come to Sen's primarily Hindu neighbourhood searching for work; his choices were the starvation of his family or the risk of death in coming to the neighbourhood. The price of Kader Mia's economic unfreedom was his death. Kader Mia need not have come to a hostile area in search of income in those troubled times if his family could have managed without it. This experience led Sen to begin thinking about economic unfreedom from a young age.[42]
InDevelopment as Freedom, Sen outlined five specific types of freedoms: political freedoms, economic facilities, social opportunities, transparency guarantees, and protective security. Political freedoms refer to the ability of the people to have a voice in government and to be able to scrutinise the authorities. Economic facilities concern both the resources within the market and the market mechanism itself. Any focus on income and wealth in the country would serve to increase the economic facilities for the people. Social opportunities deal with the establishments that provide benefits like healthcare or education for the populace, allowing individuals to live better lives. Transparency guarantees allow individuals to interact with some degree of trust and knowledge of the interaction. Protective security is the system of social safety nets that prevent a group affected by poverty being subjected to terrible misery. Development encompassing non-economic areas, Sen argues, renders the notion of a dichotomy between "freedom" and "development," as implied by the concept ofAsian values, meaningless and disingenuous.
Before Sen's work, these had been viewed as only the ends of development; luxuries afforded to countries that focus on increasing income. However, Sen argued that the increase in real freedoms should be both the ends and the means of development. He elaborates upon this by illustrating the closely interconnected natures of the five main freedoms as he believes that expansion of one of those freedoms can lead to expansion in another one as well. In this regard, he discussed the correlation between social opportunities of education and health and how both of these complement economic and political freedoms as a healthy and well-educated person is better suited to make informed economic decisions and be involved in fruitful political demonstrations, etc. A comparison is also drawn between China and India to illustrate this interdependence of freedoms. Sen noted that both countries had been working towards developing their economies—China since 1979 and India since 1991.[43]
In 2009, Sen published a book calledThe Idea of Justice.[1] Based on his previous work in welfare economics and social choice theory, but also on his philosophical thoughts, Sen presented his own theory of justice that he meant to be an alternative to the influential modern theories of justice ofJohn Rawls orJohn Harsanyi. In opposition to Rawls but also earlier justice theoreticiansImmanuel Kant,Jean-Jacques Rousseau orDavid Hume, and inspired by the philosophical works ofAdam Smith andMary Wollstonecraft, Sen developed a theory that is both comparative and realisations-oriented (instead of being transcendental and institutional). However, he still regards institutions and processes as being equally important. As an alternative to Rawls'sveil of ignorance, Sen chose thethought experiment of an impartial spectator as the basis of his theory of justice. He also stressed the importance of public discussion (understanding democracy in the sense ofJohn Stuart Mill) and a focus on people's capabilities (anapproach that he had co-developed), including the notion of universal human rights, in evaluating various states with regard to justice.[citation needed]
In 1985, Sen co-founded the Eva Colorni Trust at the formerLondon Guildhall University in memory of his deceased wife.[49] In 1987, Sen joinedHarvard as the Thomas W. Lamont University Professor of Economics. In 1998 he was appointed asMaster of Trinity College, Cambridge,[50] becoming the first Asian head of anOxbridge college.[51] In January 2004, Sen returned to Harvard.
In May 2007, he was appointed chairman of Nalanda Mentor Group to plan the establishment ofNalanda University.[52] The university was intended to be a revival ofNalanda mahavihara, an ancient educational centre.[53][54]
He chaired the Social Sciences jury for theInfosys Prize from 2009 to 2011, and the Humanities jury from 2012 to 2018.[55]
On 19 July 2012, Sen was named the first chancellor of the proposed Nalanda University (NU).[56] Sen was criticised as the project suffered due to inordinate delays, mismanagement, and lack of presence of faculty on ground.[57] Finally teaching began in August 2014. On 20 February 2015, Sen withdrew his candidature for a second term.[58]
He is also one of the 25 leading figures on the Information and Democracy Commission launched byReporters Without Borders.[68]
Media and culture
A 56-minute documentary namedAmartya Sen: A Life Re-examined directed bySuman Ghosh details his life and work.[69][70] A documentary about Amartya Sen, titled The Argumentative Indian (the title of one of Sen's own books[71]), was released in 2017.[72]
A 2001 portrait of Sen by Annabel Cullen is in Trinity College's collection.[73] A 2003 portrait of Sen hangs in theNational Portrait Gallery in London.[74]
In 2022, Sen Published his photo bookAround the World in Fifty Shots: A travel story through Portraits by Amartya Sen.[77]
Political views
Sen was critical ofNarendra Modi when he was announced as the prime ministerial candidate for theBJP. In April 2014, he said that Modi would not make a good prime minister.[78] He conceded later in December 2014 that Modi did give people a sense of faith that things can happen.[79] In February 2015, Sen opted out of seeking a second term for the chancellor post ofNalanda University, stating that the Government of India was not keen on him continuing in the post.[58]
In August 2019, during the clampdown and curfew inKashmir for more than two weeks after theIndian revocation of Jammu and Kashmir's special status, Sen criticised the government and said "As an Indian, I am not proud of the fact that India, after having done so much to achieve a democratic norm in the world – where India was the first non-Western country to go for democracy – that we lose that reputation on the grounds of action that have been taken".[80][81] He regarded the detention of Kashmiri political leaders as "a classical colonial excuse" to preventbacklash against the Indian government's decision and called for a democratic solution that would involve Kashmiri people.[82]
Sen has spent much of his later life as a political writer and activist. He has been outspoken about Narendra Modi's leadership in India. In an interview withThe New York Times, he claimed that Modi's fearmongering among the Indian people was anti-democratic. "The big thing that we know from John Stuart Mill is that democracy is government by discussion, and, if you make discussion fearful, you are not going to get a democracy, no matter how you count the votes." He disagreed with Modi's ideology of Hindu nationalism, and advocated for a more integrated and diverse ideology that reflects the heterogeneity of India.[83]
Sen also wrote an article forThe New York Times in 2013 documenting the reasons why India trailed behind China in economic development. He advocated for healthcare reform, because low-income people in India have to deal with exploitative and inadequate private healthcare. He recommended that India implement the same education policies that Japan did in the late 19th century. However, he conceded that there is a tradeoff between democracy and progress in Asia because democracy is a near reality in India and not in China.[84]
In a 1999 article inThe Atlantic, Sen recommended for India a middle path between the "hard-knocks" development policy that creates wealth at the expense of civil liberties, and radical progressivism that only seeks to protect civil liberties at the expense of development. Rather than create an entirely new theory for ethical development in Asia, Sen sought to reform the current development model.[85]
In 2025, Sen raised concerns about theSpecial Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls inBihar, warning that it could disenfranchise poor and marginalized people if documentation requirements are too strict.[86]
Personal life and beliefs
Sen with his wife Emma Rothschild.
Sen has been married three times. His first wife wasNabaneeta Dev Sen, an Indian writer and scholar, with whom he had two daughters:Antara, a journalist and publisher, andNandana, aBollywood actress. Their marriage broke up shortly after they moved to London in 1971.[60] In 1978 Sen marriedEva Colorni, an Italian economist, daughter ofEugenio Colorni andUrsula Hirschmann and niece ofAlbert O. Hirschman. The couple had two children, a daughter Indrani, who is a journalist in New York, and a son Kabir, a hip hop artist, MC, and music teacher atShady Hill School. Eva died of cancer in 1985.[60] In 1991, Sen marriedEmma Georgina Rothschild, who serves as the Jeremy and Jane Knowles Professor of History at Harvard University.[87]
The Sens have a house inCambridge,Massachusetts, which is the base from which they teach during the academic year. They also have a home in Cambridge, England, where Sen is a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Rothschild is a Fellow ofMagdalene College. He usually spends his winter holidays at his home inShantiniketan inWest Bengal, India, where he used to go on long bike rides until recently. Asked how he relaxes, he replies: "I read a lot and like arguing with people."[60]
In some ways people had got used to the idea that India was spiritual and religion-oriented. That gave a leg up to the religious interpretation of India, despite the fact thatSanskrit had a largeratheistic literature than exists in any otherclassical language.Madhava Acharya, the remarkable 14th century philosopher,[90] wrote this rather great book calledSarvadarshansamgraha, which discussed all the religious schools of thought within the Hindu structure. The first chapter is "Atheism"—a very strong presentation of the argument in favor of atheism and materialism.
Sen, Amartya (1983).Choice, Welfare, and Measurement. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.ISBN9780631137962.
Reviewed in theSocial Scientist:Sanyal, Amal (October 1983). "'Choice, welfare and measurement' by Amartya Sen".Social Scientist.11 (10):49–56.doi:10.2307/3517043.JSTOR3517043.
Sen, Amartya (1970).Collective Choice and Social Welfare (1st ed.). San Francisco, California: Holden-Day.ISBN9780816277650.
Sen, Amartya (1997).Resources, Values, and Development. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.ISBN9780674765269.
Sen, Amartya (1985).Commodities and Capabilities (1st ed.). New York: North-Holland Sole distributors for the U.S. and Canada, Elsevier Science Publishing Co.ISBN9780444877307.
Sen, Amartya;Nussbaum, Martha (1993).The Quality of Life. Oxford England New York: Clarendon Press Oxford University Press.ISBN9780198287971.
Sen, Amartya; Foster, James E. (1997).On economic inequality. Radcliffe Lectures. Oxford New York: Clarendon Press Oxford University Press.ISBN9780198281931.
Sen, Amartya;Drèze, Jean (1998).India, economic development and social opportunity. Oxford England New York: Clarendon Press Oxford University Press.ISBN9780198295280.
Sen, Amartya;Suzumura, Kōtarō;Arrow, Kenneth J. (1996).Social Choice Re-examined: Proceedings of the IEA conference held at Schloss Hernstein, Berndorf, near Vienna, Austria. Vol. 2 (1st ed.). New York: St. Martin's Press.ISBN9780312127398.
Sen, Amartya;Zamagni, Stefano; Scazzieri, Roberto (2008).Markets, money and capital: Hicksian economics for the twenty-first century. Cambridge, UK New York: Cambridge University Press.ISBN9780521873215.
Sen, Amartya (2011).Peace and Democratic Society. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers.ISBN9781906924393.
Drèze, Jean; Sen, Amartya (2013).An Uncertain Glory: The Contradictions of Modern India. London: Allen Lane.ISBN9781846147616.
Sen, Amartya (2015).The Country of First Boys: And Other Essays. India: Oxford University Press.ISBN9780198738183.
Sen, Amartya (2020).Home in the World: A Memoir. London: Penguin.ISBN9780141970981.
Chapters in books
Sen, Amartya (1980), "Equality of what? (lecture delivered at Stanford University, 22 May 1979)", in MacMurrin, Sterling M. (ed.),The Tanner lectures on human values, vol. 1 (1st ed.), Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press,ISBN9780874801781.
Sen, Amartya (1988), "The concept of development", inSrinivasan, T.N.;Chenery, Hollis (eds.),Handbook of development economics, vol. 1, Amsterdam New York New York, N.Y.: North-Holland Sole distributors for the U.S. and Canada, Elsevier Science Publishing Co., pp. 2–23,ISBN9780444703378.
Sen, Amartya (2004), "Capability and well-being", inNussbaum, Martha; Sen, Amartya (eds.),The quality of life, New York: Routledge, pp. 30–53,ISBN9780415934411.
Reprinted inSen, Amartya (2012), "Development as capability expansion", inSaegert, Susan; DeFilippis, James (eds.),The community development reader, New York: Routledge,ISBN9780415507769.
^Bandyopadhyay, Taradas; Xu, Yongsheng (2021)."Prasanta K. Pattanaik". In Fleurbaey, Marc; Salles, Maurice (eds.).Conversations on Social Choice and Welfare Theory. Vol. 1. Springer. pp. 243–258.
^Nayak, Purusottam (2000). "Understanding the Entitlement Approach to Famine".Journal of Assam University.5:60–65.
^Riz Khan interviewing Amartya Sen (21 August 2010).One on One Amartya Sen (Television production). Al Jazeera. Event occurs at 18:40 minutes in. Retrieved26 April 2016.
^Sen (1999, p. 16). Similarly, on p. 176, he wrote, "there has never been a famine in a functioning multiparty democracy."
^abUnited Nations Development Programme, UNDP, ed. (2010). "Overview | Celebrating 20 years of human development".Human Development Report 2010 | 20th anniversary edition | the real wealth of nations: pathways to human development. New York: United Nations Development Programme. p. 2.ISBN9780230284456....the first HDR called for a different approach to economics and development – one that put people at the centre. The approach was anchored in a new vision of development, inspired by the creative passion and vision of Mahbub ul Haq, the lead author of the early HDRs, and the ground-breaking work of Amartya Sen.Pdf version.
^Batterbury, Simon; Fernando, Jude (2004), "Amartya Sen", in Hubbard, Phil; Kitchin, Rob; Valentine, Gill (eds.),Key thinkers on space and place, London: Sage, pp. 251–257,ISBN9780761949626.Draft
^Sen, Amartya (22 May 1979)."Equality of What?"(PDF).Tanner Lectures – The University of Utah. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 19 June 2021.
^Nussbaum, Martha (2000).Women and human development: the capabilities approach. Cambridge New York: Cambridge University Press.ISBN9780521003858.
^Ministry of External Affairs (11 August 2010)."Press Release: Nalanda University Bill". Press Information Bureau, Government of India. Archived fromthe original on 18 January 2012. Retrieved4 January 2012.The University of Nalanda is proposed to be established under the aegis of the East Asia Summit (EAS), as a regional initiative. Government of India constituted a Nalanda Mentor Group (NMG) in 2007, under the Chairmanship of Prof. Amartya Sen...
^Chanda, Arup (28 December 1998)."Market economy not the panacea, says Sen". Rediff on the Net. Retrieved16 June 2014.Although this is a personal matter... But the answer to your question is: No. I do not believe in god.
^Bardhan, Pranab (July–August 2006)."The arguing Indian".California Magazine. Cal Alumni Association UC Berkeley. Retrieved16 June 2014.
Britz, Johannes, Anthony Hoffmann, Shana Ponelis, Michael Zimmer, and Peter Lor. 2013. "On Considering the Application of Amartya Sen's Capability Approach to an Information-Based Rights Framework."Information Development 29 (2): 106–13.
Forman-Barzilai, Fonna (2012), "Taking a broader view of humanity: an interview with Amartya Sen.", in Browning, Gary; Dimova-Cookson, Maria;Prokhovnik, Raia (eds.),Dialogues with contemporary political theorists, Houndsmill, Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 170–180,ISBN9780230303058
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