If you expect me to respect Amartya sen because he got Nobel, please go away. This piece is not intended to be nice to him.
He begins his argument with "Studies of torture across the world over the centuries have shown that people under torture would give any answer that they thought would be pleasing to the interrogator. So you do not get very much information. I know that there have been things like of water-boarding and other issues that have come up in public discussions.
There I take a position similar to that of US President Obama rather than that of the previous administration. The previous administration, especially Cheney said that certain things have to be done because they are necessary.
I think it is counter productive, unjust and ultimately stupid. But, the other issue is the big issue. Obviously, in some ways we would like to see to what extent public reasoning can actually prevent cases of terrorism. That's a long run engagement."
I am not a supporter of torture as a means of interrogation nor I would say that torture serves no purpose at all.
To claim that the intelligence gathered through torture is ineffective requires perhaps a Nobel prize. Intelligence is a dirty business; as long as we live in a material world we will need intelligence more or less the way it exists now. Imagine a potential bomb situation and you have a suspect in your hand, do you torture and extract the information, including water boarding and using truth serum and the like, or do you go on Amartya mode? "You do something because it is necessary", though it was said by someone as abominable as Cheney.
S Ghosh who has never ever looked qualified to be in prime time was hilarious. Go through the next question:
Sagarika Ghose: But in India, like in the Mumbai terror attack case which is very much in the public domain at the moment, there is the argument that fast track courts, summary sentencing is what you need to deal with terrorism and this is how justice must be delivered in terrorism.
Amartya Sen: I was trying to distinguish. I first began with general public, now we are dealing with sympathiser. Then I will have to deal with summary justice potential candidates.
Amartya Sen had clarified in the opening that he was not addressing the justice delivery mechanism but SG was watching the TRP perhaps. Not that she would have understood anything at all had she listened to Amartya. Talk about a bimbo in prime time.
Ok.. she asked a trade mark stupid question that had no relevance to the theme, but hey, the bimbo is Rajdeep's wife the reason she is there in Prime time. What did the trick was Amartya's answer. I never did understand what he meant by "summary justice potential candidate". May be he meant something, why could not he be comprehensible?
Another gem was "You have to deal with the sympathiser or those who become sympathisers"
He says that behind terrorism there are condoners who have to be challenged in a "public reasoning" and you start wondering if he has switched to VHP. What Amartya says is, in Gujarat though few people indulged in killing many more, perhaps 100 times more who have blood in their hands, because they condoned it, passively supported it and stood behind them. Why cannot Amartya talk about those passive ones behind the largest source of terrorism today? Perhaps he needs a "public reasoning"?
It gets hilarious. Sangarika somehow thinks that the book is actually meant to expose the Sena guys who wanted Kasab to be executed without trial and those who refused to sell a house to Hashmi. Nothing can distract her once she has her heart set on something. Had she interviewed a Bada-pav wala from Colaba, her questions would not have been any different or any more irrelevant. She is consistently poor quality.
Next questions and answers run like this.
Sagarika Ghose: So the idea is to bring them (Those who stood silent behind the Gujarat killers)into the public debate?
Amartya Sen: Challenge them, not bring them into the debate. The word I use is public reasoning. I am not assuming that the public is reasonable.
Sagarika Ghose: But who will reason on behalf of the public?
Amartya Sen: We have to reason. You may have a strong belief that there is an active God who is all the time present and that you can leave it in higher hands. But the truth is that there is no higher authority than us. So if you have to make a change, we have to make it ourselves.
Got it? Once you get a Nobel you think you are God. How does Amartya sen be so sure that he is right? That what he suggests will not harm the society more?
Has he read 'Shantaram'? Ever contemplated that most that we start with great good intention often deliver the opposite? Does he think that all things are completely knowable and the future controllable. A guy from science will not be able to show this kind of confidence about a possible outcome that has not been tested.
Is he really serious that the justice delivery system based on "public reasoning" will be through people like him and SG? Is this a sugar coated anarchy? God save me from these intellectuals who do not know their elbows from their ass.
Amartya sen talks bird poop, really. He goes on to say, "But I have not met any naxalite in my life and therefore to say that they will not listen to any amount of reasoning is not right either. "
This is the crux of his argument. Since he does not know any naxalite he is not sure if the naxalites will not listen to his kind of "reasoning". Does his ignorance prove that naxalites would listen to "public reasoning"? Amartya has deliberately chosen a Naxal example but not a Islamic terrorist. He would have had to tread a mine field which would have woken him up from his day dream.
What if his assumption is wrong? Sheesh, are you really sure this guy got a Nobel?
Then Sangarka crowns the show with a statement she could still have used in an interview with Bada-pav wala. It goes like this. "Secularism is a continuous dialog". What prompted her to say this cliche was Amartya's usage of the words 'secularism' and ' dialog' in one sentence.
Then the stars of vaudeville obviously were not in tune with each other.
Sagarika Ghose: So you are not saying talk to the enemy, do not lock him up.
Amartya Sen: No, I am not saying that.
Sagarika Ghose: But that's the kind of message I am getting from your book.
Amartya Sen: Are you sure you are not reading a different book?
This is Sangarika Ghosh for you. An incorrigible idiot who cannot be redeemed. I do not understand why she gets into, what she considers an "intellectual dialog" when she is only a bimbo. Can someone tell her that?Who will weed out inefficiency in Press? Can these people be sued for intellectual fraud? She may escape by pleading that she has nothing intellectual about her, which is true.
