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Academics protest bid to muzzle artistic freedom

Hasan Suroor

Prevent ``divisive forces'' from undermining India's democratic traditions

LONDON: A large number of Indian and other South Asian academics from British and American universities have protested against attempts to muzzle academic and artistic freedom in Gujarat.

They urged the Government to intervene to prevent ``divisive forces'' from undermining India's democratic traditions.

``These freedom, enshrined in the Indian Constitution, form the basis of a vibrant democracy and pluralist national culture which we must all defend,'' they said in a statement, signed among others, by Dr. Priyamvada Gopal (University of Cambridge), Dr. Gautam Appa (London School of Economcis), Dr. Gargi Bhattacharya (University of Birmingham), Professor Jigna Desai (University of Minnesota) and Professor Ania Loomba (University of Pennsylvania).

The statement said: ``We deplore the recent attack on Chandra Mohan, a graduate student at the prestigious Faculty of Fine Arts M. S. University, Baroda, and note with alarm that it was undertaken with full State collusion. We stand by our courageous colleague, Professor Shivaji Panikkar, who has been suspended for defending academic freedom, a value which is essential to the pursuit of knowledge. We urge the Indian Government and courts to take urgent measures to defend this freedom and to prevent divisive forces from undermining the values at the core of India's great democratic traditions, much admired in the rest of the world.''

The other scholars who have signed the statement are: Dr. Mukulika Banerjee, University College, London; Dr. Alison Donnell, Reading University; Dr. Susan Daruvala, University of Cambridge; Dr. Sangeet Datta, University of London; Dr. Anuj Dawar, University of Cambridge; Professor Keya Ganguly, University of Minnesota; Dr. A.J. Ganesh, Microsoft Research, Cambridge; Dr. Kaveri Gill, University of Cambridge; Professor Suvir Kaul, University of Pennsylvania; Dr. Tabish Khair, University of Aarhus, Denmark.

Dr. D. Gangjee, London School of Economics; Dr. Vinay Gidwani, University of Minnesota; Radhika Govinda, University of Cambridge; Dr. Suman Gupta, Open University, U.K.; Kirsten Hansen, Mentor, University of Aarhus, Denmark; Dr. Eivind Kahrs, University of Cambridge; Ann Langwadt, University of Aarhus, Denmark; Anita Menon-Harding, National Union of Journalists; Dr. Upamanyu Pablo Mukherjee, University of Warwick; Dr. Prem Poddar, University of Aarhus, Denmark; Dr. Amit Prasad, University of Missouri-Columbia; Dr. Subha Mukherji, University of Cambridge; Dr. Nayanika Mookherji, University of Lancaster; Shishir Nagaraja, University of Cambridge; Dr. Uttara Natarajan, Goldsmiths College, University of London; Professor Benita Parry, University of Warwick; Dr. Shirin Rai, University of Warwick; Dr. Dwijen Rangnekar, University of Warwick; Dr. Srila Roy, University of Warwick; Nikita Sud, University of York; Dr. Phiroze Vasunia, University of Reading; Dr. Soumyha Venkatesan, University of Manchester; Dr. Simona Sawhney, University of Minnesota; Dr. Sabina Sawhney, Hofstra University;

Professor Rajeswari Sunderrajan, New York University; Dr. Deborah Sutton, University of Lancaster; Dr. Weimin Tang, University of Oxford; Dr. Robert C. Thomsen, University of Aarhus, Denmark; and Dr. Sarah Wilkerson, University of Cambridge.

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