Sen, Amartya, — Identity & violence.

The illusion of destiny. In 1944, when he was a boy of 11, Amartya Sen witnessed first-hand some of the Hindu-Muslim violence that tore British India apart on the eve of the partition of the country into India and Pakistan. Kader Mia, a young Muslim day labourer, was knifed by Hindus as he came into Sen's neighbourhood in Dhaka looking for work. The murder has always haunted Sen as an example of a tragic feature that is unfortunately all too common in human societies: killing people for no other reason than the fact that they belong, often by birth, to particular communities. l Penguin. London 2006. Pb. 215 pp. Very good.