Image

സുബ്രമണ്യം സ്വാമിക്കെതിരെ ഹാര്‍വാര്‍ഡില്‍ ഒപ്പു ശേഖരണം

Published on 28 July, 2011
സുബ്രമണ്യം സ്വാമിക്കെതിരെ ഹാര്‍വാര്‍ഡില്‍ ഒപ്പു ശേഖരണം

Confront Religious Bigotry!

Demand that Harvard end its association with religious extremist Subramanian Swamy.

http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~slam/petitions/swamy.php

We the undersigned members of the Harvard community are outraged to learn that Subramanian Swamy, an Indian politician whose recent editorial shows him to be a bigoted promoter of communalism in India, also teaches economics at Harvard University Summer School. We demand that the Harvard administration repudiate Swamy's remarks and terminate his association with the University.

Swamy proposes a truly shocking set of "strategies" for "deter[ring] terrorism" in an op-ed appearing in the July 16th edition of the Daily News & Analysis, an Indian newspaper. These include "declar[ing] India a Hindu Rashtra in which non-Hindus can vote only if they proudly acknowledge that their ancestors were Hindus"; "[r]emov[ing] the masjid in Kashi Vishwanath temple and the 300 masjids at other temple sites"; "[e]nact[ing] a national law prohibiting conversion from Hinduism to any other religion"; and "[p]ropagat[ing] the development of a Hindu mindset."

Writing in the wake of the July 13, 2011, bombings in Mumbai, Swamy has exploited this event not only to promote a vision of Indian society based on Hindu supremacy, but to disparage and cast suspicion on the entire Muslim community in India. "Muslims of India," he states, "are being programmed by a slow reactive process to become radical and thus slide into suicide against Hindus."

While free expression and the vigorous contest of ideas are essential in any academic community, so, too, are respect and tolerance for human difference. By advocating measures that would grossly violate freedom of religion and the unqualified right to vote for different religious groups, and by aggressively vilifying an entire religious community, Swamy breaches the most basic standards of respect and tolerance.

More specifically, Swamy's comments cast doubt on his ability to treat a diverse community of students with fairness and respect. The highly insulting and stereotypical nature of his comments suggest that he cannot be trusted to regard Muslims -- and no doubt other groups--with anything but a jaundiced eye.

Swamy's views are deeply offensive; they are also dangerous. The measures he proposes--far out of step with the everyday secularism and tolerance embodied by most Indians--would threaten to tear apart the basic fabric of India's pluralist democracy. And, as Indians know too well, the brand of rhetoric that he employs has fueled violence against religious minorities in the past.

In short, we the undersigned condemn Subramanian Swamy and the views that he has expressed in the strongest terms. Someone who voices such ideas while continuing to teach at Harvard seriously compromises the University's integrity, undermining its commitment to diversity and tolerance.

Subramanian Swamy can have no place in the Harvard community.

 

 

See Harvard Crimson

A group of Harvard students have started a petition calling on the University to sever ties with Subramanian Swamy, a Harvard Summer School economics instructor who wrote an op-ed against Islamic terrorism that many have called offensive and inflammatory.

In an article published July 16 in the Indian newspaper Daily News and Analysis, Swamy recommended demolishing hundreds of mosques, disenfranchising non-Hindus who do not acknowledge their alleged Hindu ancestry, and banning conversion from Hinduism.

The op-ed came in response to a series of bombings in Mumbai that killed 23 on July 13.

“The first lesson to be learnt from the recent history of Islamic terrorism against India and for tackling terrorism in India is that the Hindu is the target and that Muslims of India are being programmed by a slow reactive process to become radical and thus slide into suicide against Hindus,” Swamy wrote.

His op-ed spurred over 200 people to sign a petition condemning Swamy and calling on Harvard to end its relationship with him.

“These are statements you’d expect a demagogue on the extreme right to say,” Umang Kumar, a student at Harvard Divinity School, said, “but a professor who comes here, who got his Ph.D. from Harvard?”

Kumar and Sanjay J. Pinto, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology and social policy, organized the petition with a small group of peers and then emailed it out to an initial group of 80 students.

“Both of us decided we really needed to take action,” Pinto said. “His comments are wrong on many levels. They put forth a vision of Indian society in which not all religious groups are welcome, which is very different from the India that both of us know.”

In an interview, Swamy said that he is a religiously tolerant person.

“I can’t condemn all Muslims. I’m not against them,” Swamy said. “I never said Muslims as a whole are terrorists.”

However, the petition accuses Swamy of using the July 13 bombings to write a piece that is inflammatory towards Muslims.

“Swamy has exploited this event not only to promote a vision of Indian society based on Hindu supremacy, but to disparage and cast suspicion on the entire Muslim community in India,” the petition states.

At the Summer School, Swamy teaches Economics S-110: “Quantitative Methods in Economics and Business” and Economics S-1316: “Economic Development in India and East Asia.”

In a statement sent by a spokesperson, Donald H. Pfister, the dean of Harvard Summer School, said that the school will examine the issue.

“At this point we have only a basic awareness of the situation and have not been contacted by the organizations involved," Pfister said. "Professor Swamy is a long-time member of the Harvard Summer School faculty who previously was a member of the Department of Economics here. We will give this matter our serious attention."

Pinto and Kumar plan to deliver their petition to the Harvard administration early next week.

“Swamy draws a lot of prestige and legitimacy from his position at Harvard,” Pinto said. “If the Hindu right were to come into power in India, he could very well be someone who takes up a position in government, so I think it’s important for members of this community to play a part in discrediting him and saying, ‘No, he does not represent us.’”

In India, Swamy leads the Janata party, a political party that held the majority of India’s Parliament decades ago but has since fragmented. At Harvard, he earned his Ph.D. in economics in 1965 and has served as an assistant and associate professor.

Swamy said that the Indian response to his op-ed has been positive.

“I don’t think anyone in India, except the left wing, has been upset by my article,” he said. “There has been wholesale support.”

But the backers of the petition were hardly supportive of the piece.

“Not allowing Hindus to convert to any other religion, not allowing other groups to vote unless they proudly declare their Hindu ancestry—it’s honestly kind of absurd,” Pinto said.

Kumar and Pinto both said that while freedom of speech is an integral part of a thriving academic community like Harvard, Swamy’s comments crossed a line.

“They stereotype an entire population of people,” Pinto said. “How can this man who expresses these views, who’s basically saying that India should only be for Hindus and not for other people, and denigrating all Muslims, how can he teach students at Harvard?”

—Staff writer Leanna B. Ehrlich can be reached at lehrlich@college.harvard.edu.

Join WhatsApp News
മലയാളത്തില്‍ ടൈപ്പ് ചെയ്യാന്‍ ഇവിടെ ക്ലിക്ക് ചെയ്യുക