Friday, April 15th, at 7:00PM, in room 7000, SFU Harbour Centre.
Panel Discussion: “Targeting Universities in Authoritarian India”Organized by SFU Institute for the Humanities.
Co-sponsored by Indian Summer Festival, MARU, SANSAD, SFU’s J.S. Woodsworth Chair in the Humanities, SFU’s School for International Studies, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement, and UBC’s Asian StudiesIndia is often referred to as the “world’s largest democracy,” and its economic promise has made it an attractive target for foreign investment. Recently, however, India’s democratic legitimacy seems to have come into question.On February 12, 2016, Kanhaiya Kumar, President of the Jawarhalal Nehru University Students Union was arrested and charged with sedition according to a law dating back to the British Raj. Kumar and several other students who were subsequently arrested and similarly charged have been widely proclaimed “anti-national” because slogans at a meeting held at the university to commemorate the third anniversary of the hanging of Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri convicted of attacking the Indian parliament in 2001. The speakers had questioned the justice of this execution as well as the justice of the more recent execution of Yakub Memon, who had been convicted of involvement in bomb blasts in Mumbai in 1993. The meeting had also protested the summary expulsion and eviction of some students engaged in a similar event at the University of Hyderabad that had led to the suicide of a promising Dalit student, Rohit Vemula. Some at the meeting had shouted slogans in solidarity with the people of Kashmir.The event at JNU is part of a growing authoritarianism overseen by Hindutva (Hindu nationalism), politically represented by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Indian society at large going back to the destruction of the Babri Masjid (Mosque) in 1992, and with roots in the nationalist movement itself in the early twentieth century. This Forum seeks to examine the historical context of the rise of Hundutva in general, consider the targeting of leftist students opposed to the Modi government’s neo-liberal project (the so-called “Gujurat Model”) and to draw the connection to parallel processes in Canada under the aegis of “authoritarian neo-liberalism.”
PANELISTS:
Ajay Bhardwaj, JNU Alumnus, PhD candidate at UBC, and filmmaker (The Punjab Trilogy).
Dionne Bunsha, Journalist, author of “Scarred: Experiments with Violence in Gujarat,” and SFU.
John Harriss is a social anthropologist and Professor of International Studies at SFU. He has lived and done research in India for long periods over the last forty years, and he is the co-author of ‘Reinventing India: Economic Liberalization, Hindu Nationalism and Popular Democracy’.
Gurpreet Singh, Journalist, author of “Fighting Hatred With Love: Voices of the Air-India Victims’ Families,” and host of Spice Radio.
Moderated by: Samir Gandesha, Director, Institute for the Humanities at SFU.
In the meantime:
From Dilip Menon:
Please send name and affiliation to aditya@csds.in if you would like to add your name to this expression of support and call to action on the part of the VC JNU STATEMENT AGAINST VICIOUS CAMPAIGN AGAINST FEMINIST SCHOLAR
We, the undersigned, wish to express our shock and indignation at the vicious right wing media campaign has been conducted over the past few days against well-known feminist scholar and Jawaharlal Nehru University professor Nivedita Menon. This media campaign mischievously decontextualizes her lecture at the public teach-in programme in JNU with the use of selective clips and inflammatory commentary. The television channel Zee has led the main campaign by branding Professor Menon as ‘anti-national’ and instigating viewers to take action. Such branding is tantamount to a television channel acting as both judge and jury, and directly placing an individual’s rights and safety under threat. The use of television media to attack intellectuals and instigate vigilante action is a feature of authoritarian regimes worldwide. Similar tendencies are visible in recent months in India. Singling out individuals and creating a mass-frenzy against them by using the medium of TV is a dangerous trend that directly incites and encourages violence. This is a deep disregard for any process of law. We saw Zee TV do this earlier when doctored videos became the basis of arrest and harassment of JNU students. In this case, Twitter and social media campaigns have thus followed that personally attack Professor Menon, demanding the framing of sedition charges against her and wielding open threats of rape. Most disturbingly, there are media reports of police complaints filed by interested parties demanding ‘action’ against Professor Menon. Professor Menon is a renowned scholar and feminist thinker; her texts are used in university syllabi worldwide. As a prominent scholar and activist she has intervened in academic and public debates for decades. Professor Menon has also been known as an inspiring teacher for thirty years, guiding generations of students who now work in India and abroad. She has never shied away from intellectual debate in academic and public forums, passionately intervening in debates on feminism and social theory. This is the first time that her own freedom to articulate her ideas have been so viciously attacked in an orchestrated media campaign. The freedom to articulate ideas is the basis of a university. When opinions voiced in a public lecture by an academic are made part of a selective media campaign that seeks not to debate but simply to malign, both democracy and the university are under threat. What is under question are not just Professor Menon’s ideas but also the very freedom for academics and citizens. We condemn this media campaign and associated threats, urging all academics and intellectuals to stand with Professor Menon at this time. We call on the Vice Chancellor of JNU to swiftly defend Professor Menon from such attacks and protect the sanctity of university debate. The JNU administration must stand by its faculty’s right to hold individual opinions and condemn all efforts to diminish this. The university must immediately ensure that freedoms that form its very academic basis are not eroded in this moment. We call further on every censure and action against the unlawful actions of the television channels in question. Finally, we urge all well wishers of a democratic India to stand by Professor Menon for their own freedoms, and not just hers.
Category Archives: SANSAD Events
Panel Discussion: Targeting Universities in Authoritarian India
Friday, April 15 at 7 PM – 9 PM
Rroom 7000, SFU Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, BC
Organized by: Institute for the Humanities at Simon Fraser University
Co-sponsored by SANSAD, MARU, SFU’s J.S. Woodsworth Chair in the Humanities, SFU’s School for International Studies, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement, and UBC’s Asian Studies.
India is often referred to as the “world’s largest democracy,” and its economic promise has made it an attractive target for foreign investment. Recently, however, India’s democratic legitimacy seems to have come into question.
On February 12, 2016, Kanhaiya Kumar, President of the Jawarhalal Nehru University Students Union was arrested and charged with sedition according to a law dating back to the British Raj. Kumar and several other students who were subsequently arrested and similarly charged have been widely proclaimed “anti-national” because slogans at a meeting held at the university to commemorate the third anniversary of the hanging of Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri convicted of attacking the Indian parliament in 2001. The speakers had questioned the justice of this execution as well as the justice of the more recent execution of Yakub Memon, who had been convicted of involvement in bomb blasts in Mumbai in 1993. The meeting had also protested the summary expulsion and eviction of some students engaged in a similar event at the University of Hyderabad that had led to the suicide of a promising Dalit student, Rohit Vemula. Some at the meeting had shouted slogans in solidarity with the people of Kashmir.
The event at JNU is part of a growing authoritarianism overseen by Hindutva (Hindu nationalism), politically represented by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Indian society at large going back to the destruction of the Babri Masjid (Mosque) in 1992, and with roots in the nationalist movement itself in the early twentieth century. This Forum seeks to examine the historical context of the rise of Hundutva in general, consider the targeting of leftist students opposed to the Modi government’s neo-liberal project (the so-called “Gujurat Model”) and to draw the connection to parallel processes in Canada under the aegis of “authoritarian neo-liberalism.”
PANELISTS:
Ajay Bhardwaj, JNU Alumnus, PhD candidate at UBC, and filmmaker (The Punjab Trilogy).
Dionne Bunsha, Journalist, author of “Scarred: Experiments with Violence in Gujarat,” and PhD candidate at SFU.
John Harriss is a social anthropologist and Professor of International Studies at SFU. He has lived and done research in India for long periods over the last forty years, and he is the co-author of ‘Reinventing India: Economic Liberalization, Hindu Nationalism and Popular Democracy’.
Gurpreet Singh, Journalist, author of “Fighting Hatred With Love: Voices of the Air-India Victims’ Families,” and host of Spice Radio.
Moderated by: Samir Gandesha, Director, Institute for the Humanities at SFU.
Celebrate International Women’s Day in solidarity with indigenous women in Canada and India.
Sunday, March 20: 1.00 PM – 4.00 PM
Room 120, Surrey City Centre Library
10350 University Drive, Surrey, B C: Unceded Coast Salish Territory
Speakers:
Cecilia Point, Musqueam Nation
Joyce Galuska, BC Federation of Labour
Kat Norris, Residential School survivor
Parminder Swaich, East India Defence Committee
Sunera Thobani, Race, Age, Gender, and Autobiography (RAGA) Centre, UBC
Itrath Syed, PhD candidate, SFU
Music: Sejal Lal
Join us in celebrating International Women’s Day by expressing solidarity with Indigenous women in Canada and India. Indigenous and Adivasi/tribal women have been victims of systemic violence in these two nations for years. While the struggle for national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women of Canada continues, an Adivasi female activist Soni Sori,a leading champion of human rights and of Adivasi women against the violence of the state in India was recently a victim of a brutal attack.
Radical Desi and South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy(SANSAD) bring the voice of the South Asian community to support the struggle of marginalized women who are especially vulnerable to violence rooted in colonialism and racism. Join us in fighting sexism, racism, and the heritage of colonialism in Canada and India.
For more information call Chinmoy Banerjee: 604-421-6752 or Gurpreet Singh:778-862-2454.
Lecture on Adivasi Struggles
Hari Sharma Memorial Lecture 2015
ADIVASI (ABORIGINAL) STRUGGLES IN COLONIAL AND POST-COLONIAL INDIA
Shashank Kela
Friday October 16, 2015
6.30 PM – 7.30 PM
Room 1700
SFU Harbour Centre Campus
515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver
Over the past two hundred years aboriginal people of India (Adivasis) have struggled in various ways against the violence of colonialism and the modernizing state of post-colonial India to maintain their rights in their lands, forests, and hills, and their way of life. Systematically dispossessed and displaced by the colonizers and the elite of colonial and independent India, they continue to resist and fight back.
Shashank Kela is a writer and historian based in Chennai, India. He worked as an activist in a trade union of adivasi (aboriginal) peasants in western India and has written a wide ranging study of adivasi history and politics, A Rogue and Peasant Slave: Adivasi Resistance 1800-2000 (2012).
Information: Chin Banerjee: cbanerjee@telus.net
Organized by Hari Sharma Foundation for South Asian Advancement http://www.harisharma.org
Conference on Climate Change, Oct 17, 2015
Karamat Ali Speaks on Pakistan-India Peace
Pakistan-India Peace
SANSAD-CPPC Public Forum
Pakistan-India Peace: People’s Need vs State Interest
A talk by Karamat Ali
Poetry: Irfan Malik
September 20, 2.00 pm
Room 120
Surrey Centre Library, 10350 University Drive, Surrey, BC
Since their creation as independent states in 1947 india and Pakistan have fought three wars and taken the subcontinent to the brink of nuclear holocaust. The two militarized states face each other across an uneasy “line of control” in divided Kashmir, frequently bringing the miseries of war to those living along the border. People of the subcontinent need peace, yet peace remains elusive. How can the roadblocks to peace be overcome?
Karamat Ali is a founder and Executive Director of Pakistan Institute for Labour Research and Education (PILER). He is a life-long activist for peace on the subcontinent and the recipient of the first Dadi Nrmala Deshpande Peace and Justice Award in 2013.
Born in Lahore, Irfan Malik is currently the Artistic Director of South Asian American Theatre in Boston. He writes in Punjabi, Urdu, and English. His latest book of Punjabi poetry, Dooji Aurat, was published in 2015.
Organized by South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy (SANSAD, www.sansad.org) and Committee of Progressive Pakistani Canadians (CPPC).
Contact: Chin: 604-421-6752; Shahzad: 604-613-0735
Public Forum
Mourn the secular humanists killed in South Asia and build inclusive and pluralist societies in our homelands
Sunday, June 21, 2015
2 PM – 5 PM
Policy Room 7000
SFU Harbour Centre Campus 515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver
Moderator: Zahid Makhdoom
Panelists: Ajay Bhardwaj, Aden dur-e-Aden, Anis Rahman, Harjap Grewal
Over the past few years there has been a systematic attack on secular humanists who have spoken out against the rising tide of religious fanaticism and politicized religion across South Asia. Not only has there been a growth of intolerance and violence against minorities but attempts to challenge these through speech and writing have been met with intimidation and violence. Activists, journalists, teachers, and writers have been threatened, beaten, and killed in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka by Hindu. Muslim, and Buddhist extremists, with impunity and often the complicity of the state. How shall we oppose this and work to build inclusive societies in the homelands we have left and the land where we have made our home?
Zahid Makhdoom is a champion of human rights and the rule of law; Ajay Bhardwaj is a filmmaker and graduate student at UBC; Aden dur-e-Aden is a graduate student at UBC; Anis Rahman is a graduate student at SFU; Harjap Grewal is a human rights, civil liberties, and environmental rights activist.
South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy (SANSAD), http://www.sansad.org;
sansad@sansad.org.
For more information: Chin Banerjee, 604-421-6752
Gursharan Singh Memorial Lecture 2015
Samuel John performs Jooth and Kirti
Saturday, March 15: 2 PM – 5 PM
New City Hall, Surrey
Peshawar Massacre
Community Interfaith Gathering
Strawberry Hill Library: 7399-122nd Street, Surrey
Sunday 28 December, 2014 3.00 pm – 5.00 pm