Amartya Sen, an Indian-American economist, philosopher, and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economics, wrote Development as Freedom, a book inspired in part by the violent events he witnessed leading up to the partition of India in 1947. As a child, he saw firsthand the tragic consequences of economic deprivation and social unrest. One morning, a Muslim daily labourer named Kader Mia stumbled through the rear gate of Sen's family home, bleeding from a knife wound in his back. Because of extreme poverty, he had entered Sen's predominantly Hindu neighbourhood in search of work; his choices were either to risk starvation for his family or risk death by coming to the area. The price of Kader Mia's economic unfreedom was ultimately his life. Had his family been able to survive without the income, he would not have needed to enter a hostile area in search of work during those troubled times. This experience led Sen to begin thinking about economic unfreedom from a very young age.
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