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Statement to Maintain Tolerance and Ensure Justice

Historians and Social Scientists of India at Academic Institutions Overseas

Vol. 50, Issue No. 45, 07 Nov, 2015

Updated on 17 November 2015

Open letter to the President, the Prime Minister and central government, the Governors and Ministers of different state governments, and the Chief Justice and other Justices of the Supreme Court and High Courts of India.

November 8, 2015.

On October 26, a group of distinguished Indian historians issued a statement of concern about the damage being done in the current political climate to the traditions of tolerance, and freedom of speech, belief and practices, for which India was long applauded. We – historians and social scientists engaged in researching and teaching about the richness of Indian history and society in different locations overseas – write to express our solidarity with their statement. We share the deep concern over recent happenings in India, which are affecting freedom of artistic expression and historical and social science inquiry, and serving to produce a dangerously pervasive atmosphere of narrowness, intolerance and bigotry.

Currently reigning political attitudes and actions have seriously harmed the tradition of critical inquiry into the condition of India’s past and present that undergirded the country’s reputation of tolerance and democracy. Irresponsible statements by political leaders, declaring that India is finally free from eight hundred or one thousand years of slavery, and that the glory of the Hindu nation will shine anew, are creating a sense of fear among millions of citizens now being defined as outsiders. What the present regime seems to be promoting, as our colleagues in India note, is a legislated account of the past, glorifying a homogenized and inflexible “Hindu” tradition. This denies the very inheritance that made the tradition exceptional: ongoing debate, a remarkable range of accepted beliefs and practices, and the necessity of change over time. Such a monolithic and flattened view of India’s history is not supported by the sources, or by any serious historical inquiry.

It is a sad commentary on proclaimed traditions of tolerance and democracy that a family or individual can be lynched or burnt alive for an alleged social transgression (whether this be the eating of particular kinds of meat, or the forging of social relations across certain caste barriers) – without any formal charges being brought, let alone a trial being held in court. And that well-known and respected scholars can be killed for their intellectual opinions, research and writing because these do not fit with a particular political group’s view of the “real” history or condition of India.

What makes the situation worse is that the Prime Minister and leaders of government have not felt it necessary to speak out promptly and strongly against these acts of criminal violence. With our colleagues in India, we urge the President, Prime Minister and central government, the Governors and Ministers of different state governments, and the Chief Justice and other Justices of the Supreme Court and High Courts, to uphold the law and the constitution, allowing free and fearless expression of views, ensuring security for all sections of society, and safeguarding the values and traditions of plurality that India has long cherished.

Signed:

Aiyar, Sana	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Ajantha Subramanian	Harvard University, MA
Alexander, Meena	City University of New York
Anand, Dibyesh	University of Westminster, UK
Appadurai, Arjun	New York University
Arondekar, Anjali	University of California, Santa Cruz
Baba, Norihisa	University of Tokyo
Bajpai, Rochana	School of Oriental and African Studies, London
Baker, J. Mark	Humboldt State University, CA
Basu, Amrita	Amherst College, Amherst, MA
Basu, Anustup	University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Basu, Manisha	University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Basu, Subho	Mcgill University, Canada
Bate, Bernard	Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
Berger, Rachel	Concordia University, Canada
Bhabha, Homi	Harvard University, Cambridge MA
Bhatia, Varuni	University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Bhattacharyya, Debjani	Drexel University, Philadelphia
Bilgrami, Akeel	Columbia University, New York
Bose, Neilesh	University of Victoria, Canada
Bove, Paul A.	University of Pittsburgh, PA
Busch, Allison	Columbia University, New York
Chakravarti, Ananya	Georgetown University, Washington DC
Chakravartti, Paula	New York University
Chandra, Shefali	Washington University in St. Louis
Chandra, Sudhir	Nantes Institute for Advanced Study, France
Charusheela, S.	University of Washington, Bothell
Chatterjee, Partha	Columbia University, New York
Chatterji, Joya	University of Cambridge, UK
Chattopadhyay, Swati	University of California, Santa Barbara
Chopra, Rohit	Santa Clara University, CA
Cohen, Lawrence	University of California, Berkeley
Cole, Juan	University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Dalta, Kavita Saraswathi	Mount Holyoke College, MA
Daruvala, Susan	University of Cambridge, UK
Das Gupta, Monisha	University of Hawaii, Honolulu
Das, Shinjini	University of Cambridge, UK
Datta, Antara	Royal Holloway College, London
De, Rohit	Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
Denault, Leigh	University of Cambridge, UK
Doniger, Wendy	University of Chicago
Duara, Prasenjit	National University of Singapore
Fernandes, Leela	University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Fuller, Chris	London School of Economics, UK
Gandhi, Leela	Brown University, Providence RI
Ganguly, Debjani	Australian National University, Canberra
Ganti, Tejaswini	New York University
Ghose, Toorjo	University of Pennyslvania, Philadelphia
Ghosh, Bishnupriya	University of California, Santa Barbara
Ghosh, Durba	Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Gill, Navyug	Hobart and William Smith Colleges, NY
Gold, Ann Grodzins	Syracuse University, NY
Goswami, Manu	New York University
Gottschalk, Peter	Wesleyan University, Connecticut
Govindrajan, Radhika	University of Washington, Seattle
Greenough, Paul R	University of Iowa
Grewal, Inderpal	Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
Grey, Daniel	Plymouth University, UK
Guha, Sudeshna	University of Cambridge, UK
Gupta, Radhika	Gottingen University, Germany
Guyot-Rechard, Berenice	University of Cambridge, UK
Haider, Navina	Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Hardiman, David	University of Warwick, UK
Hyder, Syed Akbar	University of Texas at Austin
Ibrahim, Amrita	Georgetown University, Washington DC
Inoue, Aeka	Shujitsu University, Japan
Jeffrey, Patricia	University of Edinburgh, UK
Jeffrey, Roger	University of Edinburgh, UK
Jenkins, Laura	University of Cincinnatti
Jones, Arun	Emory University, Atlanta
Joshi, Sanjay	Northern Arizona University
Juneja, Monica	University of Heidelberg, Germany
Kahrs, Eivind	University of Cambridge, UK
Kaicker, Abhishek	University of California, Berkeley
Kaul, Suvir	University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Keshavmurthy, Prashant	Mcgill University, Canada
Khan, Yasmin	University of Oxford, UK
Kia, Mana	Columbia University, NY
Kimura, Makiko	Tsuda College, Japan
Krishna, Sankaran	University of Hawaii, Honolulu
Lal, Ruby	Emory University, Atlanta
Lal, Vinay	University of California, Los Angeles
Lelyveld, David	William Paterson University, NJ
Loomba, Ania	University of Pennyslvania, Philadelphia
Lukose, Ritty	New York University
Mahadev, Neena	Max Planck Institute, Berlin
Maira, Sunaina	University of California, Davis
Mannathkkaren, Nissim	Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada
Mantena, Rama	University of Illinois, Chicago
Mathew, Johan	University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Matzner, Deborah	Wellesley College, Massachusetts
Mehta, Uday	City University of New York
Menon, Dilip	Univ of Witwatersrand, Johannesberg, South Africa
Menon, Minakshi	Max Planck Institute, Berlin
Metcalf, Barbara	University of California, Davis
Metcalf, Thomas	University of California, Berkeley
Mir, Raza	William Paterson University, NJ
Mistree, Dinsha	Stanford University, CA
Mitra, Durba	Fordham University, New York
Mohan, Sanal	Max Planck Institute, Gottingen
Mohanty, Satya	Cornell University, NY
Mukharji, Projit	University of Pennyslvania, Philadelphia
Muzaffar, Alam	University of Chicago
Nair, Savita	Furman University, South Carolina
Nakazato, Nariaki	University of Tokyo, Japan
Narayana Rao, V	Emory University, Atlanta
Newbigin, Eleanor	School of Oriental and African Studies, London
Pandey, Gyanendra	Emory University, Atlanta
Parthasarathi, Prasannan	Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
Patel, Ian Sanjay	Goldsmiths College, University of London
Paterson, Marion	British Academy, London
Pernau, Margrit	Max Planck Institute, Berlin
Peterson, Indira	Mount Holyoke College, MA
Pollock, Sheldon	Columbia University, New York
Prakash, Gyan	Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
Prashad, Vijay	Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut
Purohit, Teena	Boston University, MA
Raheja, Gloria	University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
Rahman, Raisur	Wake Forest University, North Carolina
Raj, Kapil	École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris
Ramnath, Maia	Penn State University, PA
Randeria, Shalini	Institute for International Studies, Geneva, Switzerland
Rao, Anupama	Barnard College, New York
Rao, Rahul	School of Oriental and African Studies, London
Redding, Jeff	Saint Louis University School of Law, MO
Reddy, Sujani	SUNY, Old Westbury, NY
Rizvi, Sajjad	University of Exeter, UK
Robinson, Francis	Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
Roy, Haimanti	University of Dayton, Ohio
Roy, Rohan Deb	University of Reading, UK
Roy, Srirupa	University of Gottingen, Germany
Ryosuke, Furui	University of Tokyo, Japan
Sahota, G.S.	University of California, Santa Cruz
Saikia, Yasmin	Arizona State University
Saith, Ashwani	IISS, The Hague, Netherlands
Sanjam, Ahluwalia	Northern Arizona University
Sarkar, Aditya	University of Warwick, UK
Sarkar, Bhaskar	University of California, Santa Barbara
Sato, Hiroshi	Japan Association for South Asian Studies, Tokyo
Sen, Dwaipayan	Amherst College, Amherst, MA
Sen, Satadru	City University of New York
Sen, Uditi	Hampshire College, Amherst, MA
Seth, Sanjay	Goldsmiths, University of London
Sevea, Iqbal	University of North Carolina, Chapel-Hill
Shah, Alpa	London School of Economics, UK
Shankar, Subramanian	University of Hawaii, Honolulu
Sharafi, Mitra	University of Wisconsin, Madison
Sharma, Aradhana	Wesleyan University, Connecticut
Sharma, Jyotirmaya	Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna, Austria
Sharma, Shalini	Keele University, UK
Sheikh, Samira	Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
Shingavi, Snehal	University of Texas at Austin
Shulman, David	Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel
Siegel, Benjamin	Boston University, Boston, MA
Singh, Amritjit	Ohio University, OH
Singh, Bhrigupati	Brown University, Providence RI
Singh, Prerna	Brown University, Providence RI
Sinha, Mishka	University of Cambridge, UK
Sinha, Mrinalini	University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Skaria, Akay	University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
Stewart, Tony	Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
Subramaniam, Banu	University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Taneja, Anand	Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
Tarlo, Emma	Goldsmiths College, University of London
Trivedi, Lisa	Hamilton College, Clinton, NY
Vaidhyanathan, Siva	University of Virginia
van der Veer, Peter	Max Planck Institute, Berlin
van Schendel, Willem	University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Vazira, Zamindar	Brown University, Providence RI
Veeraraghavan, Rajesh	Brown University, Providence RI
Virmani-Boutier, Arundhati	ÉHESS, Marseille, France
Visweswaran, Kamala	University of California, San Diego
Wald, Erica	Goldsmiths College, University of London
Washbrook, David	University of Cambridge, UK
White, David	University of California, Santa Barbara
Zecchini, Laetitia	CNRS Paris

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