Statement from Melbourne Academics in Solidarity with Ania Loomba, Suvir Kaul, Toorjo Ghosh and others at the University of Pennsylvania.

The statement follows the brief background to the issue below:

Ashley L Cohen in The Daily Pennsylvanian

In the pages of The Daily Pennsylvanian and elsewhere, supporters of Narendra Modi have framed the issue of Modi’s disinvitation from the Wharton India Economic Forum as one of free speech. The framing is a clever one. Narendra Modi is a rather unsavory figure, and he is difficult to defend on any other terms. Extremist exclusionary politics, crony capitalism, an authoritarian style of governance and the infamous 2002 riots during which thousands of Muslims were raped, murdered, burned alive and displaced on his watch — Modi’s record does not sit well with the average reader of the DP. And so it behooves Modi supporters to repackage the issue as one of free speech. These are the only grounds upon which they stand a chance of winning the war of public opinion in which they are currently engaged.

But Saturday in the streets of Philadelphia, we got a much clearer picture of what it is that Modi’s supporters actually stand for. In a protest that was organized by a group describing itself as “Americans for Free Speech,” free speech seemed pretty low on the agenda. Instead, protesters (whom, the DP reports, had been bused in from New Jersey and Queens with only a token student presence amongst their ranks) held signs declaring support for Modi’s prime ministerial bid. Was this Americans for Free Speech or Americans for Narendra Modi? More alarmingly, protesters hoisted signs bearing caricatures of professors Ania Loomba and Suvir Kaul, two authors of the petition protesting Modi’s visit…

Statement by Melbourne academics

We, academics and researchers based in Melbourne, strongly condemn the pernicious personal attacks against Professors Ania Loomba, Suvir Kaul and Toorjo Ghosh by the Hindutva lobby at the University of Pennsylvania.

Loomba, Kaul, and Ghosh, along with others opposed Narendra Modi’s invitation as a keynote speaker to the 2013 Wharton India Economic Forum (WIEF). Their protest – in the form of a letter to the WIEF organisers that gathered signatures of support from across the world – was successful in making the organisers disinvite Modi: no mean feat given the widespread support that Modi receives from several industrialists and a majority of the Hindu, upper-caste, upper/ middle classes in India, and the Indian diaspora in the US and across the world. It is necessary to emphasise that it was the organisers who disinvited Modi, and not those who lodged the protest.

There is ample evidence in the public domain – independent fact-finding reports, survivor testimonies, damning revelations by public servants, state-instituted inquiry commissions, media investigations, and statements by the Supreme Court –  that points to the Gujarat state’s complicity, under Modi’s chief ministership, in meticulously planning and executing the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom.

Events since 2002  have only seen the proliferation of spirals of impunity, the celebratory hand-in-hand march of Hindutva and neoliberalism, the spectacular rise and rise of the idea of Narendra Modi, the co-option of the Muslim vote-bank by the Bharatiya Janata Party in Gujarat, the marketing and distribution of fear, the sanitisation of the public sphere in Gujarat, and the unending trials: legal and personal of the survivors.

It is in this context that the protest letter was sent to the organisers of WIEF, clearly stating the

reasons for demanding that his invitation be rescinded. In response,WIEF organisers stated that they revoked the invitation because they didn’t want to put Modi in a “compromising position”. In a statement they declared: “We do not endorse any political views and do not support any specific ideology. Our goal as a team is only to stimulate valuable dialogue on India’s growth story…”

In support of the stand taken by Loomba and others at UPenn we strongly oppose such a lame and purportedly neutral posturing of liberal ideas. Inviting Modi, or for that matter even Montek Singh Ahluwalia (unelected representative of the Congress party which is also culpable of other kinds of genocidal violence in India) at WIEF is a clear indication of the ideology and practice that they wish to follow. Any “valuable dialogue on India’s growth story” is incomplete if the voices of the marginalised who bear the brunt of Modi’s, or even Ahluwalia’s, violent economic visions are not adequately represented.

Many have accused those who resisted Modi’s invitation of muzzling freedom of speech. Hindutva and other right-wing protesters outside the UPenn English Department (where Loomba and Kaul teach) recently carried placards with slogans like ‘Free Speech Killed at Wharton, by the English Department’ and ‘UPenn English Dept.: Intellectual Al-Qaeda’. Clearly, in this case, the academic freedom to dissent and take unpopular political positions against the powerful is being equated with censoring Modi’s freedom of speech.

This accusation against Loomba, Kaul and others is at best laughable, and at worst tragic. It is laughable because it is oblivious to the different capacity to speak and be heard that characterises the distinction between a handful of academics resisting Modi, and Modi himself, whose huge popularity among rich industrialists keep him in a deified position of financial and political power. It is tragic because in the name of upholding freedom of speech these accusations against the dissenting professors are in fact an attempt at gagging their academic freedom.

Yet, what has been remarkable about the protest is that it has indeed succeeded in actually resisting Modi’s presence, albeit virtual, at the WIEF. The protests have successfully contaminated the antiseptic discussions on economic growth in India that happens at similar gatherings of the powerful (notably, the India Today Conclave, Google Tech Summit and FICCI meet recently) who want Modi to share his story of Gujarat’s so-called economic miracle, without questioning its violent foundations and accompaniments.

This success brings to light the acute importance of the humanities within any university. In today’s neoliberal academy where technocratic education and courses are fast marginalising the humanities, this incident foregrounds the value of humanities education and need for those of us within the discipline of the humanities to resist its marginalisation. The protests outside the English Department at UPenn are a clear indication of how fascist forces actually fear the humanities.

We stand in solidarity with Loomba, Kaul, Ghosh and others at UPenn who are continuing their resistance, and again reiterate our strong condemnation of the personal attacks aimed at them for their courage to speak truth to power. We demand that the UPenn administration, which has remained a silent spectator to these attacks against their own staff, take a clear stand against these right-wing forces and uphold the academic freedom to engage in critical and reasoned dialogue, to debate and dissent within the university space.

Ben Silverstein, La Trobe University

Bina Fernandez, University of Melbourne

Debolina Dutta, University of Melbourne

Dianne Otto, University of Melbourne

Erica Millar, Deakin University

Fazal Rizvi, University of Melbourne

Jordy Silverstein, Monash University

Julia Dehm, University of Melbourne

Oishik Sircar, University of Melbourne

Patrick Wolfe, La Trobe University

Rajdeep Roy, La Trobe University

Randal Sheppard, La Trobe University

Sagar Sanyal, University of Melbourne

Sara Dehm, University of Melbourne

Sundhya Pahuja, University of Melbourne

Melbourne, 10 April, 2013