A) Is Amartya Sen an Indian citizen?

B) If not, does he have the right to comment on who he wants, or rather does not want, as India’s prime minister.

Answers: A) Matters little. B) Yes, of course.

At a time when both the BJP president and the self-claimed “secular” and pro-minority leaders are lobbying with the US administration (of all people) to either approve or deny a visa to Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, one should not get too prickly about any Indian, even if he/she is no more a citizen, to air his/her views on India’s next prime minister.

So Chandan Mitra, a senior journalist, editor-in-chief of The Pioneer and a Rajya Sabha MP of the BJP, was slightly off course when he tweeted on Tuesday, “Amartya Sen says he doesn't want Modi to be India's PM: Is Sen he (sic) even a voter in India? Next NDA Govt must strip him of Bharat Ratna.”

Just because someone said he personally (repeat: personally) does not want Modi to be India’s next PM is not reason enough to take away any government award. The Bharat Ratna, or for that matter any government of India award, does not come from any personal collection, and does not take away the awardee’s right to air his/her view.

While Amartya Sen is entitled to his opinion, it would be wrong to dismiss all of Mitra’s tweets against the Nobel Prize-winning thinker-economist as raving and ranting of the Modi-or-nothing brigade. In his multiple interviews on Tuesday (July 23) Sen left more than a few openings for his opponents to rub it in. Asked in an interview by the Economic Times (read it here) whether he would like to see Modi as the next PM, Sen said, “I think I would like a more secular person to be prime minister. I would not like a prime minister who generates concern and fear among minorities. That is the primary reason....”

While he can sit back and laugh at all the consternation and heated debates around his remark, Sen should also remember his position – the very fact that so many media organisations, and such seasoned journalists, were waiting to interview him means the weight with which every word he utters would be taken. And scanned, scrutinised, re-scanned and re-scrutinised, and finally faulted by some.

Yes, Sen can always say, “I was asked a question, and gave an answer for just that question.” But that’s an argument best left for Bollywood actors, not the likes of Amartya Sen. As an erudite man, he should know we don’t just read lines; we read between the lines as well, and then some more: what was omitted, whether deliberately, what went unsaid and so forth. And he knows it too well, having titled one of his works The Argumentative Indian.

So when he says, “I would not like a prime minister who generates concern and fear among minorities,” the question many would fire back at him is, would Amartya Sen, the humanist, approve of the tenures of Rajiv Gandhi (Shah Bano, anti-Sikh “when a big tree falls, the earth shakes”), Indira Gandhi (emergency, and a sharply polarising political leader) and PV Narasimha Rao (Babri Masjid)?

If he does not care to address them, and if he does not care to address the mother of all issues in Indian political firmament today – corruption, primarily under the stewardship of prime minister Manmohan Singh – the likes of Mitra would of course jump on him for attacking one man (Modi) and letting several others slip through suddenly-found butter fingers. And in effect batting for a certain party.

Asked, subsequently, in the same interview how he rates Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi as a politician, Sen said, “I haven't assessed him in that way. I know him as a different figure (not a politician). I know him as a likeable young man, who was a student in Trinity (College, Cambridge). We have met when I was Master of Trinity. We spent a pleasant day together. I did ask him then if he was interested in politics or not. At that time he wasn't. However, I haven't assessed him as a politician or a potential prime minister.”

Well, Rahul Gandhi, isn’t exactly the cherubic student that Sen’s reply seems to imply. He has been a member of Lok Sabha since 2004, only a couple of years more than Modi’s tenure as the Gujarat CM. If these years were sufficient for Sen to form an opinion on Modi (mind you, he has not spoken about the 2002 Gujarat riots as having formed his opinion on Modi’s purported anti-secular wings; he is talking generally, at least in this interview), why does he have to go all the way to 1995-96 to recap Amethi MP, when Gandhi went to Trinity College?

Eighteen years ago, Gandhi wasn’t interested in politics. Fair enough. But in the years since? Is it so difficult to form an opinion without meeting someone? If yes, how many times has Sen met Modi to form that opinion?

As Chandan Mitra tweeted, “I repeat. Bharat Ratna is a jewel of whole country. No BR should speak for or against any party or leader. Sen shouldn't join Cong poll team.”

That last sentence is irrelevant. But the line about no Bharat Ratna awardee should “speak for or against any party or leader” remains true. And Sen, wittingly or unwittingly, is treading on those grounds. Or so it seems.