Dhaka, May 1 -- An observation by Amartya Sen has become a cultural and political aphorism. In his book, The Argumentative Indian, Sen quotes from a poem by Raja Rammohun Roy to define the true horror of death: "Others will go on speaking, and you will not be able to argue back." In the Bengali imagination, life matters because it presupposes the ability to answer back to whatever is said. That right is central to the Bengali tradition of public debate and democratic engagement. Sen wrote all this years ago.

His words have resurfaced in the context of the Assembly elections in West Bengal. Reflecting the warm afterglow of Renaissance Bengal's influence on the rest of India, Manoj Kumar Jha, a Bihari Member of the Rajya Sabha (the Upper H...