Eminent academics open letter to the Prime Minister of India on the Kathua and Unnao rape cases
Hundreds of eminent academics have written an open letter to the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi. The academics have directly said that Modi's statements on the recent Kathua and Unnao rape cases had been "wholly inadequate, platitudinous, and non-specific assurances of justice for the victims".
The signatories to the letter are academics from across the world. The academics hail from illustrious institutes like Harvard, Columbia University, New York University, IITs, IIMs and countries like the United Kingdom, Singapore, the Netherlands and others.
This is the second open letter directly addressed to PM Modi this week. Earlier 49 retired civil servants sent an open letter to PM Modi holding him responsible for the “terrifying state of affairs”.
Here's the full text of the open letter:
Open letter to the Prime Minister of India on the Kathua and Unnao Rape Cases
To:
The Prime Minister of India,
Prime Minister’s Office, South Block,
Raisina Hill, New Delhi 110 001.
21 April 2018
Mr Prime Minister,
We are academics and independent scholars from India and abroad, writing to express solidarity with, and to endorse the sentiments expressed by, forty-nine retired civil servants in their open letter to you of April 16th 2018.
Along with these civil servants and countless other citizens of India and the world at large, we wish to express our deep anger and anguish over the events in Kathua and Unnao and the aftermath of these events; over the efforts, in both cases, of those administering the relevant States to protect the alleged perpetrators of these monstrous crimes; over the subsequent profoundly distasteful efforts of rationalisation, deflection and diversion that have been so much in evidence in the reactions of your party’s spokespersons in the media; and finally over your own prolonged (and by now familiar) silence that was broken only recently with wholly inadequate, platitudinous, and non-specific assurances of justice for the victims.
Kathua and Unnao are not isolated incidents. They are part of a pattern of repeated targeted attacks on minority religious communities, Dalits, tribals and women, in which rape and lynching have been employed as instruments of violence by gau rakshaks and others, in a sequence of events spread across Dadri in Uttar Pradesh (2015), Udhampur in Jammu and Kashmir (2015), Bijapur and Sukma in Chhattisgarh (2015-16), Harda in Madhya Pradesh (2016), Latehar in Jharkand (2016), Una in Gujarat (2016), Rohtak in Haryana (2017), Delhi (2017), Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh (2017), and now Jammu and Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh (2018).
Many of these events have occurred in States with BJP Governments, and all of them after the BJP assumed power at the Centre. This is not to associate violence exclusively with your party and with State governments presided over by your party. But there is an undeniable association with the ruling dispensation.
There is little evidence, in government action, of an appreciation of the importance of providing assistance to vulnerable sections of the society – whether through promotional measures aimed at enabling tribals and nomads to have access to forest and common property rights, or through preventive measures aimed at discouraging blatant breaches of the rule of law. Even the Allahabad High Court on April 12th 2018 observed: “If this is the conduct of the police in the state, whom will a victim approach to register a complaint? If this is the stand you are repeatedly taking then we will be forced to observe in our order that law and order has collapsed in the state".
We send you this letter because it is our duty to do so; so that we are not guilty of silence; and so that callousness and cowardice might finally draw the line at the broken body of a little girl and the rape of a young woman.
Signed:
List of signatories
N Abhilaasha, Centre for Urban Equity, Ahmedabad
Lila Abu-Lughod, Columbia University, New York, USA
Arnab Acharya, Independent researcher, Washington D.C.
Anindita Adhikari , Brown University, USA
Tanvir Aeijaz, Ramjas College, Delhi
Farzana Afridi, Delhi
Aftab Ahmad, Columbia University, New York, USA
Huma Ahmed-Ghosh, San Diego State University, CA, USA
Aniket Alam, International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad
Seema Alavi, University of Delhi, Delhi
Meena Alexander, Hunter College/Graduate Center, CUNY, New York, USA
Dibyesh Anand, University of Westminster, UK
S.Anandhi, Chennai.
Krishna Ananth, SRM University - AP Amaravati
Mary Anderson: Harvard University and Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, USA
Aneesh, K.A., Jawaharlal Nehru Institute, New Delhi
Gil Anidjar, Columbia University, New York, USA
Anitha Kumary L, Trivandrum
Sundari Anitha, University of Lincoln, United Kingdom
E. Annamalai, University of Chicago, USA
J. Shaik Dawood Ansari, Open Campus Madang, University of Papua New Guinea
Arjun Appadurai, New York University, New York, USA
Anjali Arondekar, UCLA, USA
Balveer Arora, Emeritus Professor and Chairman, Centre for Multilevel Federalism
P K Yasser Arafath, University of Delhi, Delhi
Shoba Arun, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK
G. Arunima, JNU, New Delhi
Nina Asher, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, USA
Kiran Asher, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA
Prashanth Asuri, Santa Clara University, USA
Jayadev Athreya, University of Washington, USA
Venkatesh Athreya, Social Activist and Retired Academic, Chennai
Madhav Badami, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Amiya Kumar Bagchi, (Emeritus), Institute for Development Studies, Kolkata
Barnita Bagchi, Utrecht University, Netherlands
Neha Bagle, IIM Ahmedabad
Vidura Jang Bahadur, University of Chicago, Chicago, USA
Amit R. Baishya, Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of Oklahoma
Mira Bakhru, Retd faculty, IIM Bangalore, Bnagalore.
Aparna Balachandran, University of Delhi, Delhi
Radhika Balakrishnan, Rutgers University, U.S.A
Sai Balakrishnan, Harvard University, Cambridge MA, USA
Sujata Balasubramanian, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, Hong Kong
Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen, New York University Abu Dhabi, UAE
Sibaji Bandyopadhyay, Retd Professor, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta
Abhijit Banerjee, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
Arindam Banerjee, Ambedkar University, Delhi
Chinmoy Banerjee, Emeritus, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada
Sukanya Banerjee, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA
Sumanta Banerjee, Independent Researcher, Hyderabad
Parama Barai, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.
Syamal Kumar Basak (Retd), Presidency College/University, Kolkata
Rakesh Basant, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad
Alaka Basu, Cornell University, U.S.A
Amrita Basu, Amherst College, Mass, USA
Deepankar Basu, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst MA, USA
Kunal Basu, University of Oxford, UK
Lopamudra Basu, University of Wisconsin-Stout
Kanika Batra, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, USA
Amita Baviskar, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi
Rana P. Behal, University of Delhi, India.
Jyothsna Belliappa, Bangalore
Yael Berda, Hebrew University and Harvard University, USA
Amit Bhaduri, (Emeritus), JNU, New Delhi.
Monika Bhagat-Kennedy, University of Mississippi
Manu Bhagavan, Hunter College and the Graduate Center-CUNY, New York, USA
Alok Bhalla, Former Professor of English, English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad.
Sheila Bhalla, (Emerita): Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Visiting: Institute of Human Development, New Delhi
Brenna Bhandar , SOAS, University of London, London UK
Gauri Bharat, CEPT University, Ahmedabad
Ira Bhaskar, JNU, New Delhi
Saurabh Bhattacharjee, The WB National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata
Baidik Bhattacharya, University of Delhi. Delhi
Neeladri Bhattacharya, Retd from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
Sucheta Bhattacharya, Jadavpur University, Kolkata
Debjani Bhattacharyya, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Devaki Bhaya, Stanford, CA, USA
Bhangya Bhukya, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad
Akeel Bilgrami, Columbia University, U.S.A.
A K Biswas, Former Vice-Chancellor, B R Ambedkar Bihar University, Muzaffarpur, Bihar
Bënil Biswas, Ambedkar University, Delhi
Moinak Biswas, Professor, Jadavpur University, Kolkata
Cavery Bopaiah, Bangalore
Mita Bose, retired, Indraprastha College, Delhi University and currently Adjunct faculty at ICFAI Business School, Gurugram, Haryana
Tirthankar Bose, Simon Fraser University, Canada
Saronik Bosu, New York University, New York, USA
Guillaume Boucher, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada
Milind Brahme, Chennai, India
Vacha Brat, IIM, Ahmedabad
Carmen Bugan, writer and independent scholar, Long Island, USA
Eleanor Byrne, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK
Maya Chadda, William Paterson University, NJ, USA
Kunal Chakrabarti, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
Achin Chakraborty, Institute for Development Studies, Kolkata
Chandrima Chakraborty, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada
Lekha Chakraborty, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi
Madhurima Chakraborty, Columbia College Chicago
Pinaki Chakraborty, New Delhi
Rudrashish Chakraborty, Kirori Mal College, Delhi
Shouvik Chakraborty, PERI, University of Massachussetts Amherst, U.S.A
Ranabir Chakravarti, JNU, New Delhi
Paula Chakravartty, New York University, New York, USA
Mrinalini Chakravorty, University of Virginia, USA
Barnali Chanda, Techno India University, Kolkata
Sudhir Chandra, Historian
Vinita Chandra, Ramjas College, Delhi
C. P. Chandrasekhar, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
Tarun Chandrayadula, IIT Madras, Chennai
S. Charusheela, University of Washington Bothell, USA
Sayaka Chatani, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Amita Chatterjee, Retired Professor of Philosophy, Jadavpur University
Ananya Chatterjea, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA
Indrani Chatterjee, University of Texas at Austin, USA
Sreeparna Chattopadhyay, Bangalore
Suchetana Chattopadhyay, Jadavpur University, Kolkata
Ruchi Chaturvedi, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Amit Chaudhuri, Writer, Calcutta
Aparna Chaudhuri, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA
Rosinka Chaudhuri, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta
Sudip Chaudhuri, Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata.
Sukanta Chaudhuri, (Emeritus), Jadavpur University, Kolkata
Supriya Chaudhuri, (Emeritia). Jadavpur University, Kolkata
Wendy Chavkin MD, MPH, Columbia University, New York, USA
Ying Chen, New School for Social Research, New York, USA
Anuradha Mitra Chenoy, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
Kamal Mitra Chenoy, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
Dolores Chew, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada
Anita Chikkatur, Carleton College, Northfield, MN
Camille Cole, Yale University, U.S.A
Andrew Cornford, Geneva Finance Observatory, Switzerland
Amrita Chhachhi, International Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, The Netherlands
Jagdeep Chhokar, Professor (Retired), Indian Institute of Management,Ahmedabad
Sarah E. Chinn, Hunter College, CUNY, New York, USA
Deborah Choate, MD, Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, Boston, USA
Noam Chomsky, ( Emeritus) Massachussetts Institute of Technology, and University of Arizona, U.S.A
Deepta Chopra, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK
Elora Halim Chowdhury, University of Massachusetts Boston, USA
Indira Chowdhury Bengaluru, India
Indranil Chowdhury, University of Delhi, Delhi