Home Bangladesh Why Nobel laureates in South Asia disrespected?
Bangladesh - April 29, 2023

Why Nobel laureates in South Asia disrespected?

Industry Report: On the one hand, in 2006, Dr. Muhammad Yunus received the Nobel Peace Prize, on the other hand, proposed to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for the Rohingya issue in 2017, but she did not receive it. But in the meantime, the word ‘versus’ in the name of these two people has established its existence.
The founder of Grameen Bank as a conspirator in the way of the implementation of the bridge including stopping the financing of the Padma Bridge. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has given speeches on various occasions blaming Muhammad Yunus. The topic is more discussed around the inauguration of the bridge.
In reference to Dr. Muhammad Yunus, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said that for an MD who blocked money for a bridge like the Padma Bridge, he should be taken with two dips in the Padma River.
In order not to die, one should dip a little in the Padma river and give it to the bridge.
The suffering of Nobel laureates in South-East Asia is boundless. And we are seeing the latest chapter of unrest in West Bengal during Amartya Sen’s reign. Their family was recently served with a notice to return the land from their ancestral home ‘Pratichi’.
So far, 954 individuals and 27 organizations have received the Nobel Prize. There are 70 representatives of Asia in this list. This is small compared to Asia’s share (60 percent) of world human capital.
In the past, receiving a Nobel was a matter of particular celebration in Southeast Asia. It may not be as it seems in the future. Especially after Aung San Suu Kyi, Abdus Salam, Mother Teresa, Muhammad Yunus, Amartya Sen has to go through the terrible experience, in the future no one in the region will want to get such world respect; Even if you get it, you will want to leave your township and hide somewhere far away.
Abdus Salam is an example of the fate of Nobel laureates in South Asia that can haunt them even after death. He belongs to the Ahmadiyya or Qadiani community. Although the prize was awarded for his research and hard work in theoretical physics, for the majority of his countrymen, his religious beliefs were paramount, not his contributions to the world of knowledge. As a result, at one stage, it was also seen that his gravestone was removed from the identity of ‘Muslim’. This initiative was related to the declaration of Ahmadis as ‘non-Muslims’ in Pakistan.
Although Abdus Salam contributed immensely to scientific research in his country for nearly 45 years, the above incident has some indication of how he is viewed by the mainstream population.
35 years after Abdus Salam’s Nobel, Malala Yousafzai, the country’s second Nobel laureate, has not had a pleasant experience either. While a 17-year-old won the Nobel Prize globally, he was widely condemned in Pakistan as a promoter of ‘Western culture’. There is a strong perception that Malala lacks religious values.
In Pakistan, Abdus Salam fled the country at the age of 68 after realizing a different kind of irony. Later his dead body only returned to the country.
There was no escape for Suu Kyi in Myanmar. But now even his old age is no concession from his opponents. Liu Xiaobo could not survive. Malala has to live a semi-secret, semi-public life. The residence of the Sen family may also be ‘rescued’ by the central government of that country.
Apart from Malala, three other people from the region won the Nobel Peace Prize. A large part of Southeast Asia’s Nobel Prize went to ‘contributions to peace’. But what is surprising and funny is that almost all of these awardees are in serious trouble, their relatives claim.
Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi won the Nobel 22 years before Malala. His past struggle for democracy and long house arrest formed the backdrop for his award. Unfortunately, this 77-year-old woman is still under house arrest at the time of writing.
Even though he won the elections for a few days and ran the government, there is no chance of his release for now. He has already spent about 17 years in prison in several rounds.
Suu Kyi’s life is now reminiscent of Liu Xiaobo’s fate in neighboring Myanmar’s China. This author, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, died in prison in July 2017. He was released a month ago after his death was confirmed. Before that, he was imprisoned at least five times at different times. Before Muhammad Yunus, Malala Yousafzai, Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize came to South Asia through Mother Teresa.
Although not a South Asian by birth, Mother Teresa won the Nobel Prize for her work in the region. He was also heavily criticized before and after his death. Some called him a ‘religious imperialist’. Many said he was not morally acceptable-he used to take donations from the rich. Famous Marxist Tariq Ali is also in the list of such critics.
Even in Bangladesh, the left-wing gurus used to criticize Muhammad Yunus about the interest rate of Grameen Bank. Muhammad Yunus jointly won the Nobel Prize in 2006 with Grameen Bank. Then in 2011, the investigation started with Grameen Bank. Since that year, he is no longer in that famous bank. He has faced several other legal and investigative actions over the past decade.
We are witnessing the latest chapter in the region’s Nobel Laureate unrest in West Bengal during Amartya Sen’s reign. Their family was recently served with a notice to return the land from their ancestral home ‘Pratichi’.
Amartya Sen’s home ‘Pratichi’ is well known. According to Rabindra Bharatiya Sevak Upacharya Pavitra Sarkar, Amartya Sen’s house land at Santiniketan was leased during the reign of his grandfather Kshitimohan Sen. Kshitimohan was once in charge of the vice-chancellor in Visva Bharati.
After the death of Rabindranath, everyone accepted Kshitimohan as the ashram guru there. In 1932, Ashok Sen, the then professor of Dhaka University, married Amita Sen, the youngest daughter of Kshitimohan, who was close to Rabindranath Tagore in Santiniketan. Amartya Sen is the son of this couple. Before the partition of Bengal, the Sens of East Bengal left behind the addresses of Manikganj-Bogra-Dhaka.
Suman Sengupta, a political organizer from West Bengal, wrote on his Facebook ID, highlighting the information he had gathered, that the discussed ‘lease agreement’ was between Ashutosh Sen, the poet’s son Rathindranath Tagore, in October 1943. Whatever the truth of these facts, nothing happened with Armatya Sen regarding the land. It is an old-fashioned thing.
However, the current Vice-Chancellor of Visva Bharati says that the ‘Pratichi’ house there has 13 decimals of land illegally occupied, so the Nobel laureate should vacate this land as Ashok Sen’s successor. But the people of Kolkata feel that it is not just a matter of 13 decimal land.
As a word ‘pratichi’ means westward or westward. On the ‘east side’ of the Sen family’s agony in Santiniketan is the anger of India’s rulers against Amartya Sen.
However, the year after Amartya Sen won the Nobel Prize in 1998, the BJP government of Atal Bihari did not delay at all in taking advantage of him by giving him the ‘Bharat Ratna’. But now he has become offensive. This has been going on for several years. It is not difficult to guess what his crime is.
Amartya Sen could not hide his disagreement with Narendra Modi’s governance. He favors the development model of the left-wing BJP government in Kerala for the development of India. Those data-based dissents are of use to anti-RSS political activists.
In that context, Amartya Sen’s land litigation has now become or will be a part of BJP’s ‘game’ against others. But in the middle of 89 years, this Nobel laureate had to fall into an extremely ironic situation.
In Pakistan, Abdus Salam fled the country at the age of 68 after realizing a different kind of irony. Later his dead body only returned to the country. There was no escape for Suu Kyi in Myanmar. But now even his old age is no concession from his opponents.
Liu Xiaobo could not survive. Malala has to live a semi-secret, semi-public life. The residence of the Sen family may also be ‘rescued’ by the central government of that country.
The message of such consequences to Nobel prize-winning dissidents is so clear that it needs no explanation. At the same time, it also gives a clear indication of the future of South-East Asia, which is asking Nuye Chala to adopt the standard.

Check Also

Railway employees active in illicit ticket operations

Staff Correspondent : Despite repeated measures, the black market of railway tickets can’t…