Amartya Sen And Fake News: A Love Story

A false narrative about Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, and his alleged involvement in a corruption scandal worth Rs. 2730 crore at the Nalanda University, has been revived again and made viral on WhatsApp.

A similar misleading story had gone viral in the month of April, after being tweeted out by a senior Times of India Editor - Bharti Jain, which was later debunked by BOOM.

This comes a week after the 85-year old economist made a statement about the politicization of religion in Bengal, and the term "Jai Shri Ram" becoming a major political issue in the state.

Resurrecting A Debunked Story

On July 9, 2019, BOOM got an elaborate message on its WhatsApp helpline number, that provided a detailed account of an alleged scandal at the Nalanda University worth Rs. 2730 crore, involving Amartya Sen and three daughters of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh - Dr. Upinder Singh, Daman Singh, and Amrit Singh.

BOOM also received the following photo, which contained the same misleading story in Bengali, titled "Amartya Sen is also a scam".

After searching on Facebook with the caption, we found that it has been revived on the social media platform as well.

All the messages carried a link to a Twitter post by TOI Senior Editor Bharti Jain, which has now been deleted.

Recap

The viral message had stark similarities with another message BOOM received on April 28, 2019, which detailed a conspiracy regarding misuse of funds allocated for the Nalanda University by Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen.

Soon after, this message was made viral after being tweeted out word-to-word by Bharti Jain, a senior internal security editor at Times of India, who attributed the information to "government sources".

Interestingly, the revived messages had provided a link to Jain's tweets as a source for the information, despite Jain having deleted them and putting out a clarification that the contents of the deleted tweets were incorrect.

Our Detailed Fact Check

When the contents of Jain's tweets became viral over two months ago, BOOM did fact check on all the claims made, and found them to be blatantly false or misleading.

The following claims were made in the message:

1.

Economist Amartya Sen received a salary of Rs. 5 lakh per month during

his tenure as Chancellor of Nalanda University, during which he was

running the institution from abroad. He also received tax-free benefits,

unaccounted foreign travels, meeting in luxury hotels, power to direct

appointments. etc.

2. Total expenditure was Rs. 2729 crore.

3.

Dr Gopa Sabharwal, Dr Anjana Sharma, Nayanjot Lahiri and Upinder Singh –

daughter of Manmohan Singh – from Delhi University were made faculties.

4.

Daman Singh and Amrit Singh, also daughters of Manmohan Singh, were

appointed honorary faculties. They stayed in the US while drawing salary

from the institution.

5. After 2014, when Modi arrived, all these fraud were stopped and Amartya Sen was thrown out of Nalanda University.

The following excerpt has been taken from our older article on this issue, which provides a detailed fact check on each of the claims.

"

1.

Amartya Sen receiving a salary of Rs. 5 lakh,tax-free benefits,

unaccounted foreign travels, meeting in luxury hotels, power to direct

appointments.

Amartya Sen's salary as the Chancellor of

Nalanda University has been under controversy since 2015, when

Subramanian Swamy had taken this up with the university.

According to a report by The Hindu, the university retorted back by saying that Swami's allegations were 'false' and that Sen received no remuneration during his tenure as Chancellor as his work was done in honorary capacity.

Nalanda

University also claimed that Sen did in fact receive a free Air India

pass from former Prime Minsiter Atal Behari Vajpayee to celebrate his

Nobel Prize, which had nothing to do with the university.

Sen running the university from abroad

In Indian universities, the position of Chancellor is ceremonial, and does not have any administrative functions

The

Nalanda University Act clarifies that it is the Vice-Chancellor who is

the principal academic and executive officer of the University.

Therefore, Sen was never conferred the power to 'run' the institution.

BOOM reached out to Sen for a comment on this matter, and the article will be updated upon receiving a response.

2. Total expenditure incurred was Rs. 2729 crore.

The WhatsApp message implies that an amount of Rs. 2729 crore had been spent under the Chancellorship of Dr. Sen.

On

April 22, 2015, V. K. Singh as the Minister of State of External

Affairs stated that while an amount of Rs. 2727 crore had been approved

by the Government of India for the establishment of the University, only

Rs. 47.28 crore had been released at the time of this statement.

Therefore, an expenditure of Rs. 2729 crore is practically impossible.

3. Dr Gopa Sabharwal, Dr Anjana Sharma, Nayanjot Lahiri and Upinder Singh from Delhi University were made faculties.

BOOM

found that Dr. Gopa Sabharwal was indeed the Vice-Chancellor of Nalanda

University while Dr. Anjana Sharma was the Founding Dean (Academic

Planning).

However, no mention of Lahiri or Singh was found on the Nalanda University website.

BOOM reached out to Lahiri, who rubbished the claims.

"I

have neither applied for a faculty position at Nalanda nor did I ever

serve as faculty there. I have not been paid even a rupee by Nalanda in

any capacity whatsoever," she stated.

BOOM also reached out to Singh, and the article will be updated when she responds.

4. Daman Singh and Amrit Singh, also daughters of Manmohan Singh, were appointed honorary faculties.

BOOM

did not find any mention of Daman Singh and Amrit Singh on the Nalanda

University website, nor was there any report that shed light on their

involvement with Nalanda University.

Suhasini Haider, senior

editor at The Hindu, claimed in a tweet in response to Jain's that after

a check she found out that neither of the two names mentioned were made

faculty at the University. She also claimed that one of them doesn't

even live in the USA, as claimed by the viral message.

BOOM reached out to Daman Singh for a comment. The article will be updated if and when she responds.

5. After 2014, when Modi arrived, all these fraud were stopped and Amartya Sen was thrown out of Nalanda University

Prof.

Sen's tenure as Chancellor ended with his first term in the position,

which lasted for three years as per the Nalanda University Act.

According to a report by The Hindu,

Prof. Sen had claimed that there was a unanimous resolution for a

renewal of his Chancellorship for another term. However, Dr. Sen had

refused to do a second term as he felt that the government wants him "to

cease being the Chancellor of Nalanda University".

In response to

a question at the Rajya Sabha dated August 13, 2015, V. K. Singh had

stated that Prof. Sen "had publicly declared that he wanted to exclude

himself from being considered for continuing as Chancellor of Nalanda

University beyond July 2015".

Thus, its safe to say that the WhatsApp message has some gaping loopholes that question its credibility.

"

Also Read: TOI Editor Tweets Misleading WhatsApp Message Targeting Amartya Sen, Cites 'Govt Sources'