Mukti Rijal

Literally confined at home due to prohibitory restriction on the movement for contain the chain of coronavirus infections, this writer used the sedentary time to shuffle through the collections of vintage issues of magazines such as Newsweek, Frontline, the other day, that have been stacked in my book shelf for several years now. Suddenly, I caught hold of the commemorative issue of Frontline– India's national magazine– published almost a decade ago to mark 25 years of its publication.
The commemorative issue brings together the carefully selected stories done by a team of senior journalists focused on significant national and international issues and thoughts of eminent thinkers and scholars published over the last 25 years. Frontline newsmagazine was launched in November 1984 as a fortnightly magazine. It is generally found by its readers committed to upholding secular, progressive, left of the centre orientation on key political, economic, and social, cultural and intellectual issues. While going over the stories published in the commemorative volume, this writer has found that the esteemed fortnightly newsmagazine has consciously provided space to contrary views, arguments and criticisms especially through interviews, opinions, columns, and responses.
Of all the interesting and introspective materials reprinted in the commemorative issue mentioned above, this writer found the excerpts of interview with Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen conceptually very rich to expostulate the meaning of democracy, freedom and justice.

Influential thinker
A very influential thinker and pioneer of the concept of human development, the economic thoughts and philosophy of the category of economists like Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen have imparted profound influences in democratisation of the state and society giving priority to maximising the social and political entitlements of the citizens. In the interview given to VK Ramachandran published in the magazine, Dr. Sen talks at length about the influences of several figures that had helped to cultivate, nourish and shape his intellectual frames.
As shared in the interview, Dr. Sen admits that he had the strongest influences of Adam Smith because of his enlightenment vision based on the idea that human society can be a lot better through rational assessment of cause and effect. According to Dr. Sen, use of reasoning and rational assessment can really make a difference in eliminating acute problems and difficulties that characterise many societies and making people's lives better, freer and more fulfilling. It is often not recognised that Smith's criticisms of state intervention, according to Dr. Sen, is motivated primarily by the argument that such interventions are made on the advocacy of rich and privileged members of society and that they tend to promote their interests rather than the interests of the poor.
Second category of thinkers who have influenced Amartya Sen are John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx. According to Dr. Sen, John Stuart Mill's idea on the importance of liberty and his elaboration of different types of liberties are very much important in evaluating social and political situation of a country. Similarly, Marx's analysis of exploitation in addition to inequality is very important to understand social and economic problems. Marx's emphasis on substantive freedom is to do with replacing the domination of circumstances and chance over individuals by the domination of individuals over chance and circumstances.
Among the contemporary influences over him in shaping up his thoughts on social choice and justice are Kenneth Arrow and John Rawls. In the interview, he gives credit to Kenneth Arrow's book titled "Social Choices and Individual Values” that not only impressed him but also became a very big part of his intellectual enterprise. Dr. Sen provides a summation of Kenneth Arrow’s social choice theory, and observes: "When the subject of social choice theory was revived in its modern form by Kenneth Arrow, he put the discipline of social choice in a structured and analytical form with explicitly stated and examined axioms demanding that social decisions satisfy certain minimal conditions of reasonableness from which the appropriate social rankings and choices of social states would emerge."
He further writes: "As an evaluative discipline, the social choice theory is deeply concerned with the rational basis of social judgments and public decisions in choosing between social alternatives".
John Rawls’ much acclaimed work titled “The Theory of Justice” has had a lasting impact on shaping up the thought of Amartya Sen. In his “Theory of Justice”, Rawls puts this focus upfront. The definitive idea for deliberative democracy is the idea of justice itself because when citizens deliberate, they exchange views and debate their supporting reasons concerning public questions they cultivate spaces for justice.
The Nobel Laureate Bengali economist wrote a monumental classic titled “The Idea of Justice” on which both Kenneth Arrow and John Rawls provided their extensive comments too. But sadly, Rawls passed away before Sen's work saw the light of the day. The idea of justice is dedicated to the memory of John Rawls from whom Amarty Sen drew many concepts and ideas.

Inclusive approach
Kenneth Rowe wrote an illuminating appreciation of Sen's work “The Idea of Justice”. He has observed that Sen's concept of justice is a major critical analysis and synthesis of various ideas and concepts. The variety of viewpoints precisely reflects Sen’s inclusive approach. With the depth of the empirically relevant knowledge and analytic capability, Sen has presented with asset of considerations on justice of importance to both academic community and the world of policy formation.
This writer believes that Amartya Sen's ideas on freedom, justice and human development are relevant today especially in the developing world where poverty and inequality is rampant and states have failed to protect citizens from the disasters like coronavirus pandemic.

(The author is presently associated with Policy Research Institute (PRI) as a senior research fellow.)