'UK splitting society on the basis of religious identity'

Challenging the view that people of the world could be partitioned into little boxes in terms of civilizational categories, Nobel laureate Professor Amartya Sen has said Britain was splitting the society on the basis of religious identity.

"After enormous success in building an integral society, the British government is now splitting the society by dividing people on the basis of religious identity," Prof Sen said during a discussion at the Nehru Centre in London on Wednesday night.

"Miniaturization of human beings and putting them into one identity will not work," he asserted.

Speaking on Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny,' Sen also observed that invasion of Iraq itself was a 'grave mistake.' He drew on history, economics, science, literature and his own memories of difficult as well as easy times on three continents to present an inspiring vision of a world that could be made to move toward peace as firmly as it had spiraled in recent years toward violence and war.

Kamalesh Sharma, High Commissioner of India to the UK, also spoke while Dr Tom Bentley, Director of Demos, an independent think-tank, moderated the discussion.