It was not just “logistical issues” that lay behind the decision by the office bearers of the Oxford India Society to cancel a lecture by Bharatiya Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy and Rajiv Malhotra, a US-based writer on India. There were pressures to do so from a range of voices on campus.
‘The Contrarians’, as the event slated for April 3 at Exeter College was called, was to have had Mr. Swamy speak on economic development and reforms in India, and Mr. Malhotra speak on Indian history in the context of his book “Breaking India: Western Interventions in Dravidian and Dalit Fault Lines.”
Acknowledging that the event “faced strong opposition from Indian students and few faculty members of the university,” Anjul Khadria, president of the OIS told The Hindu that the Oxford University Students’ Union Black and Minority Ethnic Wing also requested OIS to reconsider the event.
Unlike the Oxford Union, which is an autonomous body, the OIS is part of the University, Mr. Khadria said, and therefore “we are obliged to consider the views of [a] wide range of students and staff of the University.”
Further, the hosts of the event Exeter College asked the OIS to bring on board another speaker to bring more diversity of views on the panel, but given the paucity of time they were not able to do this. “We are committed to our vision for OIS as a hub of free speech and hope in future students, faculty and other societies are more welcoming of our efforts,” Mr. Khadria said.
The announcement of the talk had met with a sharply divided response from the campus, coming as it did soon after Mr. Swamy’s controversial comments in India on places of worship. (Mr. Swamy was reported to have said that a mosque is not a religious place but a building that can be demolished.)
The opposition to hosting Mr. Swamy and Mr. Malhotra was led by a group of Oxford-based students and faculty who in their online petition urged the OIS to reconsider holding the event given Mr. Swamy’s “vitriol against Muslims, and his demand for their disenfranchisement conditional upon acceptance of their ‘Hindu ancestry.’” Mr. Malhotra, “is known for his patently fanatic blogs”, and his new book targets scholars who have been critical of India’s caste system and other forms of social iniquity, the petition stated.
The petitioners argued that while persons with “morally repugnant views” have a right to express themselves, “we do not feel we have a duty to invite persons to air them at a platform which bears respect.”
While the BJP has expressed “shock” over the cancellation, Mr. Swamy had his say through his tweets “@jytkoul: They are too scared to counter my arguments. Want to keep the students in purdah,” and “@jytkoul : Where is the BBC and their howls about freedom of expression?”.
