Amartya Sen said the land was registered on a long-term lease and nowhere close to expiry.
Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has written to Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today, thanking her for support in the controversy over his ancestral property in the campus of the Visva Bharati University's campus in Santineketan. The university has reportedly named the renowned economist among the squatters on its land in a list sent to the Ministry of Education. The Chief Minister has accused the BJP of creating a controversy around the laureate as he has been a vocal critic of its government's economic policies.
Professor Sen's family home in Santiniketan, "Pratichi", was built by his maternal grandfather Kshitimohan Sen, a scholar and an associate of Rabindranath Tagore, who established the university a hundred years ago. The laureate has said the land was registered on a long-term lease that is nowhere close to expiry.
"I am not only most touched, but also very reassured that despite the busy life you have to lead, you can find time for reassuring people under attack. Your strong voice, along with your full understanding of what is going on, is, for me, a tremendous source of strength," he wrote to Ms Banerjee today.
On Friday, the Chief Minister had written to the 87-year-old. Expressing "surprise and anguish", she spoke of his deep links with Santiniketan and "nouveau invaders" raising baseless allegations.
"Some nouveau invaders in Visva Bharati have started raising surprising and baseless allegations about your familial properties... This pains me, and I want to express my solidarity with you in your battles against bigotry of majoritarians in this country, the battles that have made you an enemy of these forces of untruth," she wrote.
Today, the Chief Minister said, "Amartya Sen is being attacked for his views against the Union government. This is completely unacceptable. Just like I am being attacked for my political views," she told reporters.
Professor Sen is one of the celebrities -- who along with the state's icons like Rabindranath Tagore -- have been dragged into controversy ahead of the assembly elections four months away.
The laureate has accused its vice chancellor of acting at the behest of the Centre "with its growing control over Bengal".
"I could comment on the big gap between Shantiniketan culture and that of the VC, empowered as he is by the central government in Delhi with its growing control over Bengal," Mr Sen wrote.
The controversy had started on Thursday, coinciding with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address in the University's centenary celebrations.
The media reported that the university has written to the government alleging that dozens of land parcels it owns are wrongly recorded in the names of private parties, including Mr Sen. These people had set up restaurants, schools and other businesses on its land, the university said, according to the report.