Amartya Sen is, inarguably, the most distinguished economist India has ever produced. Some of the major events of his career are highlighted in the accompanying box. If the list therein is exiguous, it's because life is governed by such unpleasant realities as word limits. An accurate and exhaustive catalogue would closely follow the contours of H. Hatterr's capacious fantasy: "... fellow of the royal geographical, humane, automobile, asiatic, astronomical and microscopic societies ..." With Sen, it has been a case of life imitating art.

As part of the brief given to this writer, it was delicately suggested that he should steer clear of unrestrained panegyrics. Since one's objectivity is on the line, one takes it that some element of negative criticism of the subject is called for in the interests of completeness and balance. To this end, it may be useful to resort to Sen's own technique of enumeration. Firstly, for all of the wonderful lucidity of his exposition, some of his formal papers, with their trademark combination of fine-grained logic, minute differentiations, and trickily nuanced arguments, can tax the patience and stamina of even his most devoted students: indeed, a fellow-economist was one provoked to describing him, with some asperity, as "that distinguished distinguisher". Secondly, while Sen has always been a generous and courteous critic of the work of others, he has also been known to be a stubborn and at times prickly defender of his own viewpoint against the criticism of others (as opponents of his work on liberty, for example, will testify wryly). One is here reminded of the exhortation, addressed to an unyielding dissenter, by an ally of that redoubtable rhetorician h*y*m*a*n k*a*p*l*a*n: "Give an inch, Shimmelfarb!" Thirdly, and finally, I believe it would be a great kindness to Professor Sen to suggest that his handwriting is execrable. Surely nobody can now accuse this writer of bias.

A remarkable facet of Sen's research output has been the range and versatility of its coverage. He has worked not only in economics but also in philosophy; and in crossing disciplinary borders, he has nonetheless managed to preserve a certain continuity and smoothness of transition whereby one is enabled to perceive his work as reflecting a seamless whole. Within economics, he has made original and critical contributions to development theory, planning, capital and growth theory, investment appraisal, the study of technology and employment, welfare economics, social choice theory, poverty and inequality measurement, issues in the causes and redressal of famines and destitution, and population policy. This roster naturally leaves out much else of interest.

His philosophical work, insofar as it is possible to separate it from his economics, has made deep explorations into issues of justice, inequality, morality, liberty, freedom, rationality and objectivity. As a philosopher he has eminently fulfilled those requirements that have been laid down by Stendhal, and which Nietzsche held in such high esteem: "In order to be a good philosopher, one must be dry, clear, devoid of illusion." More recently, Sen has been concerned to be a committed commentator on issues of social and political salience, coming out strongly, as he has done, against religious fundamentalism and the bomb. Taking his work as a whole, one especially striking feature of it has been his capacity to systematically anticipate his own future concerns, so that seemingly disparate themes evolving over time are often tied together by a running thread which is part of one grand design: a testimony to both the precocity and prescience of the Sen of progressively earlier vintages. "And the end and the beginning," as Eliot said, "were always there."

What commands the attention of the professional economist is the almost single-handed effort undertaken by Sen to restore economics to the status it once enjoyed under the banner of classical political economy. His great achievement has been to re-establish both the centrality and the scientific validity of value-orientation in economics, to underline the necessity of seeing the subject as being concerned with normative ("ought-related") propositions as much as with positive ("is-related") propositions. Like another great contemporary of his, Satyajit Ray, Sen has expressed himself firmly and unequivocally, but not stridently. His own standing and credibility in the world of scholarship have much to do with the deep responsibility he has shown in deferring to the demands placed by the harsh rigours of disciplinary protocol, and to the demands made by a just vision of life itself.

What can one say of his impact? In his book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, James Agee has warned against that ultimate instrument of a great person's emasculation: acceptance. Tokenism is the enemy of engagement. Amartya Sen's effort is awesome. One only has to look around to see that the mission to which his life's work points has scarcely begun to be addressed yet.

S.Subramanian is a professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies. He was taught by Professor Amartya Sen.