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:
from historians and social scientists of India at academic institutions overseas;
dated 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 | MIT, Boston, MA (USA) |
Ajantha Subramanian | Harvard University, Cambridge, 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, Japan |
Bajpai, Rochana | School of Oriental and African Studies, London |
Baker, J. Mark | Humboldt State University, Arcata, 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-NUS College, Singapore |
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, WA |
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 |
Datla, 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, IL |
Duara, Prasenjit | National University of Singapore |
Dudney, Arthur | University of Cambridge, UK |
Fernandes, Leela | University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI |
Fuller, Chris | London School of Economics, UK |
Furui, Ryosuke | University of Tokyo, Japan |
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 | Goettingen University, Germany |
Guyot-Rechard, Berenice | University of Cambridge, UK |
Haider, Navina | Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
Hancock, Mary | University of California, Santa Barbara |
Hardiman, David | University of Warwick, UK |
Hyder, Syed Akbar | University of Texas at Austin |
Ibrahim, Amrita | Georgetown University, Washington DC |
Inoue, Aeka | Shujitsu University, Okayama, Japan |
Jeffrey, Patricia | University of Edinburgh, UK |
Jeffrey, Roger | University of Edinburgh, UK |
Jenkins, Laura | University of Cincinnatti, OH |
Jones, Arun | Emory University, Atlanta |
Joshi, Sanjay | Northern Arizona University, AZ |
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, Tokyo, 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 |
Lerche, Jens | School of Oriental and African Studies, London |
Loomba, Ania | University of Pennyslvania, Philadelphia |
Lukose, Ritty | New York University |
Mahadev, Neena | Max Planck Institute, Berlin, Germany |
Maira, Sunaina | University of California, Davis |
Mannathukkaren, Nissim | Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada |
Mankekar, Purnima | University of California, Los Angeles |
Mantena, Rama | University of Illinois, Chicago |
Mathew, Johan | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
Matzner, Deborah | Wellesley College, Massachusetts |
Mehta, Monika | Binghampton University, NY |
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 |
Murphy, Ann | University of British Columbia, Canada |
Muzaffar, Alam | University of Chicago |
Nair, Savita | Furman University, South Carolina |
Nakazato, Nariaki | University of Tokyo, Japan |
Narayana Rao, V | Emory University, Atlanta |
Natrajan, Balmurli | William Paterson University, NJ |
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 |
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, M. 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 Goettingen, 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 of 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 |
Sheth, Falguni | Emory University, Atlanta |
Shiga, Miwako | Senshu University, Kawasaki, Japan |
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 |
Subramanian, Ajantha | Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass |
Subramaniam, Banu | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
Swamy, Raja | University of Tenessee, Knoxville, TN |
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, France |
Zupanov, Ines G. | CNRS, Paris, France |
Published - November 09, 2015 09:14 pm IST