Author Credentials: Amartya Sen is a Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University and formerly the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. He is Senior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. Previously he was Professor of Economics at Jadavpur University Calcutta, the Delhi School of Economics,, The London School of Economics, and Drummond Professor of Political Economy at Oxford University.
Summary: Sen argues that the values of Gandhi are useful today in guiding leaders to ending terrorism. For example, Gandhi advocated against schools that promote the hatred or alienation of another group of people based on race, religion, or caste. Using this Gandhian value in British policy has basically eliminated the militant preaching in certain mosques and madrassas. Gandhi advocated for nonviolent approaches to ending violence, which Sen uses to argue against the torture of prisoners at prisons like Guantanamo. Sen states that the torture and poor treatment of prisoners is used by terrorist groups to drum up support for their causes. Torture and abuse cannot be used to fight torture and abuse. Gandhi also spoke out about the divisions between Indians based on religion. Sen argues that bridging the gap between people and seeing others not in terms of religion, but as humans, can have a tangible effect on the efforts to end terrorism.
Analysis: Sen presents a good and especially poignant argument in this article. However, Sen seeming portrays Gandhi and his views as infallible. There is not much diversity in thought in this article. Sen is very knowledgeable of Gandhi and his views, and he does present a strong argument with good supporting details. Overall, the argument of the article is strong and well-supported, but some bias is detectable.
Both interesting & relevant. Thank you for sharing!
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