I do not find any difference between Baba Ramdev’s comments on Indian Economics and Amartya Sens’s comments on Indian Culture. Both are experts in a particular field. I don’t know where do such people get the confident feelings that being an expert in one field automatically qualifies them to be masters of all fields of knowledge.
In his heydays as an anti corruption crusader Baba Ram Dev made statements like, ‘There should not be any tax other than bank transaction tax. All other taxes should be abolished.‘ I think this statement must have been made to get tax exemption for his own FMCG products rather than any real interest in reforming the tax system of our country.
Recently, the Meghalaya Governor has slammed Amartya Sen for the later’s narrow views on Hinduism. Amartya Sen has said that Bengal has no connection with Jai Sriram and he implies that the only Hindu Goddess Bengal should be connected with is Maa Durga.
First of all, Mr Amartya Sen is forgetting one fundamental fact about Hinduism which is that it is a polytheistic religion. Regions, families, individuals may have their favourite god known as ista deva, but that does not make them renounce the pantheon of other gods. In Hindu houses you rarely find the photo or idol of only one God. Each temple may be dedicated to one principal deity, but other gods are present in the temple premises as parshwa devata. In our epics all the gods are interrelated.
Secondly, Bengal has a rich vasihnav tradition. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was born in Bengal and he is the inspiration for the world wide movement called ISKCON whose mahamantra is – Hare Krishan hare Krishan Krishna Krishna hare hare, Hare Rama hare Rama, Rama Rama hare hare. Nobel laureate Amartya sen, you really need to brush up your basic knowledge of Hinduism.
Thirdly, if some people are beating others using the slogan Jai Sriram, I don’t think the slogan Jai Shriram is responsible for that. When Islamic Terrorists kill people in the name of Allah, do we say Allah is responsible for all such killings? If you ban use of Jai Sriram slogan in Bengal, days are not far when the miscreants will beat up people using the slogan Jai Mata Di.
In case Amartya Sen is making these statements for political reasons, the only thing I can say is that let Maa Durga save Bengal and India from the misadventures of such intellectuals.
PEBBLES AND WAVES 
Even Donald Trump knows our country better than Amartya Sen. There is no denying the acumen of Sen in certain fields of economics, but he has displayed no better disposition than Laloo Yadava and Mamta Banerjee in general.
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Coincidentally, the person who gave Amartya Sen his name was also a Nobel Laureate from Bengal. Wish Rabindranath Tagore had had given some of his cultural knowledge also to this self styled liberal called ‘Amartya Sen’.
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Add to the arguments the teachings and messages of Sri Ramakrishna, who had spent his whole life stressing the unity of all religions. And also Swami Vivekananda, especially his Chicago address.
But Sir, this is the trend nowadays, cricketers give speeches on foreign policy, and movie stars on defence policies.
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So true. Movie stars are a class apart.
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I think Baba Ramdev has more expertise on business compared to Prof Sen’s expertise on Hindu dharma. Baba has set up a big business out of nothing. I do not know if Prof. Sen has achieved any spiritual enlightenment. Prof. Sen often speaks on religion, but he never spoke on violence perpetrated by government goons in his home state. Prof. Sen never spoke about people being barred from filing nomination papers in panchayat elections. So his condemnation and comments are selective. The same group of people who do not seen any religion in certain terror, do not hesitate to brand another set of activity with Hindus. This is called double standard.
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Agree with your views. Thanks for stopping by.
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Very strong and potential write up.
I did not know about these two comments and both of these are shocking and surprising.
About the tax i second your view and about the “Jai Sri Ram” you have analyzed very logically.
But Sir, i have one doubt here…Does ISKCON totally follows the path of Mahaprabhu, so far my knowledge is concerned lots of changes Prabhupada have made…
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You are right in your observation that lots of changes have taken place in ISKCON since the time of Chaitanya. However, Bengal has been in forefront in reviving many Hindu Traditions not restricting itself only to the worship of Kali.
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