Even as Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee became the second Indian economist to win the prestigious Nobel Prize the City of Joy and particularly his alma maters South Point High School and Presidency College erupted in joy with the Kolkata civil society congratulating the new Nobel Laureate for “taking the cause of the poor to Stokholm at a time when inclusive development has fallen prey to market forces.”
While his soft spoken mother Nirmala Bandopadhyay, herself an economist said, “More than being my son Abhijeet belongs to the whole nation I have nothing to say separately. The credit belongs to India.”
She said “I came to know about this only late in the afternoon when my younger son called me up.” In his reaction the Nobel Laureate economist said, “I can’t believe that I will get the Prize so early. I am happy. ... There are a number of scholars who are yet to get the recognition and so I fell from the sky to know about me getting the prize ahead of them. I hope their work too will be acknowledged soon.”
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said “Hearty congratulations to Abhijeet Banerjee, alumnus of South Point School & Presidency College Kolkata, for winning the Nobel Prize in Economics. Another Bengali has done the nation proud. We are overjoyed.”
Registrar of Presidency College (now University) Debjyoti Konar said, “we are planning a grand welcome for him. It is the same Department of Economics that gave us a Nobel Laureate in Amartya Sen. Today his student has bagged it. We are overjoyed.”
Abhijeet Pathak a close friend of college days remembered Banerjee as a “shy, meritorious boy who always impressed the teachers with his skills. We used to know him more as Jhima rather than Abhijeet.
Though I used to come second he used to be a topper and was way ahead.
He was equally adept in English, Mathematics and History.” He is agood cook as well, his friends said.
Incidentally “he got 232 out of 400 and I got 235 in Honours course and some other students got much more than us. However in Part II he got so much marks that he broke all the records. This proves the determination in him.”
Bangla writer Sirshendu Mukherjee said “once again we have been able to prove that India and Indians and more so the Bengalis can do it in international arena.”
Former Bengal Finance Minister and himself an alumnus of the historic Presidency University Dr Ashim Dasgupta said, “The subject of Amitava Banerjee is almost akin to what we as Marxist say. His works are a reflection of the fact that no development can achieve the target without targeting inequality.”
Another writer remembered how Banerjee had in a public function in Kolkata asked his audience to read his book which is “not impregnable as people think economics to be.
It will make for an easy reading and perhaps will throw some light on tackling of poverty.” He bagged the award for his “experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.”
