Statement of Social Scientists

LETTERS Issn 0012-9976 Ever since the first issue in 1966, EPW has been India’s premier journal for comment on current affairs and research in the social sciences. It succeeded Economic Weekly (1949-1965), which was launched and shepherded by Sachin Chaudhuri, who was also the founder-editor of EPW. As editor for thirty-five years (1969-2004) Krishna Raj gave EPW the reputation it now enjoys. editor C Rammanohar Reddy EXECUTIVE Editor aniket Alam Deputy Editor Bernard D’Mello CHIEF COPY Editor KAUSHIK DASGUPTA Senior Assistant Editor Lina Mathias copy editors Prabha Pillai jyoti shetty Assistant editorS P S Leela lubna duggal Assistant editor (web) Anurag Mazumdar editorial Assistant ABHISHEK SHAW production u raghunathan s lesline corera suneethi nair Circulation Gauraang Pradhan Manager B S Sharma Advertisement Manager Kamal G Fanibanda General Manager & Publisher K Vijayakumar editorial [email protected] Circulation [email protected] Advertising [email protected] Economic and Political Weekly 320-321, A to Z Industrial Estate Ganpatrao Kadam Marg, Lower Parel Mumbai 400 013 Phone: (022) 4063 8282 FAX: (022) 2493 4515 EPW Research Foundation EPW Research Foundation, established in 1993, conducts research on financial and macro-economic issues in India. Director J DENNIS RAJAKUMAR C 212, Akurli Industrial Estate Kandivali (East), Mumbai 400 101 Phones: (022) 2887 3038/41 Fax: (022) 2887 3038 [email protected] Printed by K Vijayakumar at Modern Arts and Industries, 151, A-Z Industrial Estate, Ganpatrao Kadam Marg, Lower Parel, Mumbai-400 013 and published by him on behalf of Sameeksha Trust from 320-321, A-Z Industrial Estate, Ganpatrao Kadam Marg, Lower Parel, Mumbai-400 013. Editor: C Rammanohar Reddy. 4 Over the past week a number of groups have issued statements against what they perceive as growing intolerance and assaults on constitutional rights. Below are extracts from four such statements. The full text and complete list of signatories of each statement are on the website of EPW. Statement of Scientists T he scientific community is deeply concerned with the climate of intolerance, and the ways in which science and reason are being eroded in the country. It is the same climate of intolerance, and rejection of reason that has led to the lynching in Dadri of Mohammad Akhlaq Saifi and the assassinations of M M Kalaburgi, Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare. All three fought against superstition and obscurantism to build a scientific temper in our society. Kalaburgi was a renowned scholar and an authority on the Vachana literature associated with the 12th-century reformer Basava, who opposed institutionalised religion, caste and gender discrimination. Similarly, Dabholkar and Pansare promoted scientific temper through their fight against superstition and blind faith. The Indian Constitution in Article 51A(h) demands, as a part of the fundamental duties of the citizens, that we “...develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform.” Unfortunately, what we are witnessing instead is the active promotion of irrational and sectarian thought by important functionaries of the government. The writers have shown the way with their protests. We scientists now join our voices to theirs, to assert that the Indian people will not accept such attacks on reason, science and our plural culture. We reject the destructive narrow view of India that seeks to dictate what people will wear, think, eat and who they will love. We appeal to all other sections of society to raise their voice against the assault on reason and scientific temper we are witnessing in India today. Alladi Sitaram, Ashoke Sen, Ashok Jain, A Gopalakrishnan, D Balasubramanian, Madabusi Raghunathan, P M Bhargava, P Balaram, Satyajit Mayor, Spenta Wadia, A P Balachandran, Vidita Vaidya, Vineeta Bal, Vishal Vasan, Vivek Borkar and more than 90 other scientists. Statement of Artists T he artist community of India stands in firm solidarity with the actions of our writers who have relinquished awards and positions, and spoken up in protest against the alarming rise of intolerance in the country. We condemn and mourn the murders of M M Kalaburgi, Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare, rationalists and freethinkers whose voices have been silenced by right-wing dogmatists but whose “presence” must ignite our resistance to the conditions of hate being generated around us. We will never forget the battle we fought for our pre-eminent artist M F Husain who was hounded out of the country and died in exile. We remember the right-wing invasion and dismantling of freedoms in one of the country’s best known art schools in Baroda. We witness the present government’s appointment of grossly unqualified persons to the Film and Television Institute of India Society and its disregard of the strike by the students. We see a writer like Perumal Murugan being intimidated into declaring his death as a writer, a matter of dire shame in any society. While the Prime Minister of the country has been conspicuously reticent in his response to the recent events, the reactions of ministers in his government reveal their ignorance and prejudice. Mahesh Sharma, Minister of State for Culture, has made abhorrent comments about mob lynching and murder. His remarks suggesting that writers should stop writing to prove their point are alarming. Arun Jaitley, Minister of Finance, and Information and Broadcasting, has mocked the actions of our respected writers as a manufactured “paper rebellion.” He asks for scrutiny of the political and ideological affiliations of those who are protesting. To these and other such provocations there is a clear answer: while the actual affiliations of the protesting writers and artists, scholars and journalists may be many and varied, their individual and collective voices are gaining cumulative strength. It is this that the ruling party will have to reckon with: the protestors’ declared disaffiliation from a government that encourages marauding outfits octoBER 31, 2015 vol l no 44 EPW Economic & Political Weekly LETTERS to enforce a series of regressive commands in this culturally diverse country. The scale of social violence and fatal assaults on ordinary citizens (as in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh; Udhampur, Jammu and Kashmir; Faridabad, Haryana) is escalating. The contemptuous comments about the religious minorities and Dalits made by those within the government confirm that there is little difference between the RSS–BJP mainstream and supposed “fringe” elements. The Sangh Parivar and its Hindutva forces operating through their goon brigades form the support base of this government; they are all complicit in the attempts to impose conformity of thought, belief and practice. The ideology of the ruling party has revealed its contempt for creative and intellectual work; bigotry and censorship will only grow. As in the past, we must challenge the divisive forces through varied forms of appeal and protest, articulation and refusal. Our demand can be nothing less than that the entire range of constitutional rights and freedoms of the citizens of this country—freedom of expression and speech, right to dissent and exert difference in life choices including culture and religion—be ensured. A government that does not tolerate difference, that does not safeguard the lives and interests of its marginalised and vulnerable citizens, loses its legitimacy in a democratic polity. We are facing this situation now, already. Anjolie Ela Menon, Arpana Caur, Balan Nambiar, Gieve Patel, Gulammohammed Sheikh, K G Subramanyan, Meher Pestonji, Ranjit Hoskote and more than 300 other artists. Statement of Social Scientists W e, as social scientists, scholars, teachers and concerned citizens, feel extremely concerned about the lynching at Dadri, and the murders of scholars and thinkers like M M Kalaburgi, Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and others, and wish to register our strong protest. We are not just shocked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s late response, but also by the implications of the victimblaming statement he made. To say that “Hindus and Muslims should not fight Economic & Political Weekly EPW octoBER 31, 2015 each other but should fight poverty instead” puts the onus for peace and fighting poverty entirely on civil society and communities and absolves the state of any responsibility for both. As Prime Minister, he should have asserted that the state would defend the rule of law. In a country with some 4,693 communities and over 415 living languages, each community is bound to have its own customs, including dietary choices. Individuals may also follow practices different from the ones followed by the majority of their community. Any attempt to impose a uniform belief or practice, on either individuals or communities, is antithetical to the freedom enshrined in the Constitution. It is the state’s responsibility to ensure this freedom. Achin Vanaik, C Lakshmanan, Gayatri Menon, Johannes Manjrekar, Kalpana Kannabiran, Lakshmi Subramaniam, Meena Radhakrishna, Mritiunjoy Mohanty, R Nagaraj, Ravinder Kaur, Sasheej Hegde, T N Madan, Valerian Rodrigues, Virginius Xaxa, Zoya Hasan and more than 200 others. Statement of Historians C oncerned at the highly vitiated atmosphere prevailing in the country, characterised by various forms of intolerance, we, as academic historians and as responsible citizens of a democracy that has greatly valued its inherited traditions of tolerance, wish to express our anguish and protest about the prevailing conditions. Differences of opinion are being sought to be settled by using physical violence. Arguments are met not with counterarguments but with bullets. When a poor man is suspected to have kept a food item that certain sections do not approve of, his fate is nothing short of death by lynching. At the launch of a book whose author happens to be from a country disapproved of by certain groups, the organiser is disfigured with ink thrown on his face. And when it is hoped that the head of the government will make a statement about improving the prevailing conditions, he chooses to speak only about general poverty; and it takes the head of the state to make the required reassuring statement, not once but twice. When writer after writer is returning their award of recognition in protest, no comment is made about the conditions that caused the protest; instead the ministers call it a paper revolution and advise the writers to stop writing. This is as good as saying that intellectuals will be silenced if they protest. This is particularly worrying for us as historians as we have already experienced attempts to ban our books and expunge statements of history despite the fact that they are supported by sources and the interpretation is transparent. What the regime seems to want is a kind of legislated history, a manufactured image of the past, glorifying certain aspects of it and denigrating others, without any regard for chronology, sources or methods of enquiry that are the building blocks of the edifice of history. We would therefore urge the state to ensure an atmosphere that is conducive to free and fearless expression, security for all sections of society and the safeguarding of the values and traditions of plurality that India had always cherished in the past. It is easy to trample them down, but it is important to remember that it will take too long and will be beyond the capacity of those who are currently at the helm of affairs, to rebuild it once it is destroyed. Romila Thapar, Irfan Habib, M G S Narayanan, K N Panikkar, Y Subbarayalu, B D Chattopadhyaya, D N Jha, B B Chaudhuri, J V Naik, K M Shrimali, Neeladri Bhattacharya, Rajan Gurukkal, A R Venkatachalapathy, and more than 40 other historians. Web Exclusives The following articles have been published in the past week in the Web Exclusives section of the EPW website. They have not been published in the print edition. (1) Diphtheria Deaths in Kerala: Signs of an Impending Crisis—Muhammed Shaffi, Kesavan Rajasekharan Nayar and S S Lal (2) Peace in Progress: How Turkey’s Leaders Will Combat Extremism—Karthick Ram Manoharan and Onur Yildi (3) Academics and Scholars Protest against Assault on Academic and Constitutional Freedom (4) Artists’ Statement on Growing Political and Religious Intolerance—SAHMAT Articles posted before 24 October 2015 remain available in the Web Exclusives section. vol l no 44 5 LETTERS Subscription Rates (Revised rates effective January 1, 2015) Print Edition – For India Web Edition/Digital Archives Rates for Six Months (in Rs) Category Print (Plus free web access to issues of previous two years) Print + Digital Archives Individuals 1,250 1550 India (in Rs) Rates for One Year (in Rs) Category Print (Plus free web access to issues of previous two years) Print + Digital Archives (According to Number of Concurrent Users) Up to 5 More than 5 6,600 10,000 The full content of the EPW and the entire archives are also available to those who do not wish to subscribe to the print edition. 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