Noble laureate Amartya Sen, whom The Economist refers to as an ‘economist who thinks like a philosopher’, one who can ‘theorise without oxygen at any height’, recently released his latest book, The Idea of Justice.

On August 5, Sen delivered a lecture in Kolkata drawing upon the premise of his latest book. Media reports of the lecture highlighted eyeball-grabbing issues of Singur land acquisition and the role of trade unions that Sen touched upon during the lecture. Then the reports went on to convey his lament made during the same lecture that we, as a society, give far more importance to broader issues like Singur land acquisition or the Indo-US nuclear deal than we give to the perennially nagging issues like poverty and undernourishment.

Puzzled, I looked up the web for a copy or video file of the lecture, but in vain. So I bought the book instead. It has been three days since then and I am yet to move past the preface (in my defence, the book is not exactly a bedtime read. A cursory look suggests that the prose is more technical and less anecdotal than that of The Argumentative Indian). Nonetheless, the little that I have gathered from book reviews and recent media interviews tells me that The Idea of Justice explores exciting ways to address social issues that have troubled us for long.

Sen questions the widely accepted approach to social justice — famously propounded by the American philosopher John Rawls in The Theory of Justice – that social justice can be delivered by creating perfectly just institutions. To wit, if we have to make healthcare or primary education accessible to all, we must create institutions or systems to ensure the same.

Sen proposes that a more efficient way to deliver social justice would be to identify social injustices and weed them out. That is, in the above example, we must recognise where and why people are being deprived of primary education or healthcare, and correct such anomalies.

Sen’s latest book, which has been in the works for about 25 years by his own admission, is perfectly timed. As evidenced by our social indicators, the Rawlsian way of creating just institutions, systems or mechanisms hasn’t proved very effective in our country so far.

It is about time that the myriad social mechanisms that exist in our country should deliver what they promise, for a change. Insufferably huge amounts of resources and man-hours have been invested in creating and managing such institutions, but we continue to have millions of people among us who will never be able to realise their full potential – something a democracy must ensure in principle – just because they don’t have access to proper healthcare, nutrition or basic education. I, like everyone else, hope that Sen’s treatise on justice sparks off a nationwide debate that influences our approach to development.