You can be branded a criminal in a BJP ruled state even if you deliver a lecture defending Hinduism from what you call ‘derogatory’ misinterpretation by Western scholars! If you’re a Leftist academic, you can be branded a criminal even for inviting such a scholar, whose views you disagree with!
In yet another example of a saffron attack on scholars, the BJP Government of Rajasthan, instigated by the Sangh Parivar outfits, has launched a vicious attack on philosophy professors, ordering an FIR to be filed against one of them.
The Philosophy Department of the Mohanlal Sukhadia University of Udaipur, headed by Professor Sudha Choudhary, had organized a lecture on the need for a dialogue on religion, under the Indian Council of Philosophical Research extension lecture series. The Department had invited Professor Ashok Vohra, recently retired as head of the Philosophy Department of Delhi University, to deliver the lecture.
Soon after, video clippings of the lecture, edited to be devoid of context, were circulated on social media, followed by mischievous and provocative headlines and irresponsible and inaccurate reporting in some local papers. The ABVP then held demonstrations, claiming that Professor Vohra’s lecture had ‘offended Hindu sentiments,’ instigated to do so by Professor Sudha Chaudhary who was a Marxist/Leftist, and so on. They burnt effigies of the professors and demanded that FIRs be filed against them.
Ironically, the content of Professor Vohra’s lecture was very far from ‘Leftist’. In fact, Prof Sudha Choudhary had invited him in spite of the fact that she nd many others on the Left might not agree with many of his opinions. Professor Ashok Vohra, in a protest letter to the PM, described his position: “I had, quoting influential scholars like Wendy Doniger, Paul Courtright et al, shown how these scholars are misinterpreting and making false, maligning, derogatory and misleading propaganda in the name of scientific and objective study of Hindu gods and goddesses.” To argue with the views of these scholars, he first quoted extensively from them.
Many may disagree with Professor Vohra’s views. It may even seem that Professor Vohra’s views are adaptable to the RSS claims about Doniger and other ‘Western’ scholars of Indology. But there is no doubt that he presented his views in a scholarly way, and was open to debate and disagreement. And that is why he earned the ire of the ABVP and RSS! It did not matter that he disagreed with Doniger and others: the very fact that he read them and asked others to read them before disagreeing, made him a target for the RSS, which is an enemy of books and scholarship.
It is also true that on the pretext of attacking Professor Vohra’s lecture as ‘anti-Hindu’, the RSS and ABVP wanted to attack Prof Sudha Chaudhary herself. She is well known to be a scholar who regularly invites a range of scholars and intellectuals to the University from all over the country. She is also known to be a leader of the AIPWA, organizing many protests on issues of women’s rights and on civil liberties issues. A leaflet attacks Prof Sudha Chaudhary for inviting the likes of Justice Rajinder Sachar, Swami Agnivesh and Abhay Dube, all of whom are branded as ‘anti-national’.
What is most shocking is that the HRD Minister of the Rajasthan Government himself made a phone call to the Udaipur police – dictating that they file an FIR against Professor Vohra! BP Sharma, Vice Chancellor of Pacific University, a private university in Udaipur and an office bearer of the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch and RSS, addressed a public meeting demanding arrest and exemplary punishment of the professors, while the Dean of the Arts College of the MS University Farida Shah went to the police to file a complaint.
The University authorities, obeying the rulers rather than defending the scholars, have introduced new rules that any lecture can be organised on campus, only after a written script of it is submitted and scrutinized by a committee!
What a shameful state of affairs if a University is ruled by the saffron thought-police! What is most interesting is that Professor Sudha Chaudhury, a Marxist, was broad-minded enough to invite a scholar whose views she did not subscribe to – while the RSS, the Rajasthan Government and the University are displaying intolerance, not just to dissenting voices but to the very concept of scholarship.