Response to "Faculty Statement on Modi" by Professor

Vamsee Juluri

------------------------------------------------------------------------TR. Narasimha Rao, Ph.D.

Loflin Chair Professor-Emeritus of Computer Science
University of Louisiana, Lafayette, LA
Former President, Hindu University of America, Orlando, FL
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Professors Response to Prejudice and Fear-mongering in the Faculty Statement on

Narendra Modis Visit

We wish to register our strong exception to the position signed on to by some of our
colleagues against the visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to California in
September. Their document not only misreads and disregards Indian democracy,
religious pluralism, and civilizational self-understanding, but also perpetuates a culture
of delusion and deception in South Asian studies. As faculty who have taught, published
or worked with industry on and in India for several decades, we believe it is important
for readers to recognize that the views of signatories to the anti-Modi statement by no
means represent everyone in academia today.

The allegation that Narendra Modi ought to be viewed with suspicion, if not disdain, by
business leaders in Silicon Valley because of his Digital India initiative and because of a
powerful signal sent by the denial of his visa several years ago reveals an utter lack of
respect not only for objectivity and truth but also for the sacred institutions of democracy
and judicial process. (One may also note in passing the irony in some of these scholars
who have rarely seen anything good about Silicon Valley and its idealism now
presuming to lecture its CEOs. The White House only recently issued a statement
announcing Indo-US partnership in cybersecurity, a step that will presumably not to be
the liking of these scholars either). Their exhumation of slanderous allegations against
Narendra Modi needs to be seen in the light of the facts first, which are as follows.

Narendra Modi was cleared by several investigating agencies of any complicity in the
riots that broke out in Gujarat in 2002 following the burning of a train carrying Hindu
pilgrims by a Muslim mob. He ran an inclusive campaign for Prime Minister and was
vindicated by one of the largest mandates received by an elected official on the face of
the earth. The powerful support Modi has received from two major institutions that
govern civilized modern societies should be proof enough of the inappropriateness of
the allegations that have been relentlessly leveled against him by a section of academia
and the press.

However, if there is any new evidence that the signatories to the petition have to
support their bizarre charges against a democratically elected leader of a sovereign
nation, then by all means they are free to leave their comfortable campuses, travel to

India and present their evidence in Indian courtrooms. Fighting for justice and truth, in
our view, requires far more commitment than merely adding names to a document that
mocks the aspirations of people in India and around the world who believe in Mr. Modis
innocence and integrity.

If Indias perception of Narendra Modi somehow fails to dent their academic

presuppositions about him, perhaps these scholars could consider what the
international community has been saying about him instead. That President Obama was
the invited chief guest at Indias Republic Day celebrations, and has personally
endorsed Narendra Modi in the annual Time magazine review of influential world
figures, and other world leaders have rushed to invite the Prime Minister for longdelayed talks with India have been conveniently ignored by these naysayers. Mr. Modis
most recent visit, it should be noted, was to the United Arab Emirates, where he was
warmly welcomed by senior members of the governmentwho, unlike several of our
self-styled academic protectors of Islam, actually happen to be proud and devout
Muslims who have accepted Mr. Modi for who he is.

The truth is that Narendra Modi has won the trust of Muslims, Hindus and others in India
and abroad through his words and actions in the face of one of the most relentless and
unjust witch-hunts a public figure has faced in recent times. The fact that tens of
thousands of admiring people fill stadia to listen to him speak, leaders of state and
industry (including several Silicon Valley CEOs) are waiting eagerly to meet him, and
most of all the process of justice that has been duly followed, should all have inspired at

least some introspection and intellectual growth among South Asian academic experts.
Instead of presenting facts, all that they have done is to latch on to trivialities and errors
of judgment that the world has moved well beyond, like the U.S. governments past
actions in denying Mr. Modi a visa, an action that even high-ranking U.S. government
officials have admitted that they were indeed wrong to have ever taken.

That the allegations about the 2002 Gujarat riots have been revived yet again, and on
this occasion repackaged under the pretext of a hitherto unknown and unheard of digital
surveillance scare (as commenters have pointed out, the policies that the signatories of
this allegation refer to were set in place by the previous UPA government), gives us
cause to ask our colleagues if their self-professed expertise in South Asia is really as up
to date as they think it is. In our view, their position represents a stark decline in
academic standards as a result of their dogmatic and ideological obsessions when it
comes to Narendra Modi, Hinduism, and India.

Not only have they have failed to keep up with current thinking but they have instead
sought to play the card of academic censorship to excuse themselves from it. For all
their talk about assaults on academic freedom, our colleagues have failed to recognize
that the greatest victim of censorship and distortion in recent years has not been any
one of them but Narendra Modi. Just a few years ago, he was effectively prevented
from addressing by videoconference students and faculty at The Wharton School in
UPenn because of a campaign by academic crusaders like themselves. We therefore
have to ask: what is it about Narendra Modi that academicians such as the signatories

of this petition fear so much? If their scholarship is that astute and their understanding
of India so clear, why do they prefer to shut out Modi, time and again, rather than
engage in an open and evidence-based debate about his record?

Unfortunately, this sort of highly selective and distorted posturing about academic
freedom and integrity is something that many of us have seen in our academic careers.
It is an unspoken reality that the dominant academic position on South Asia, with its
demonization campaign of Modi at the center, sustains itself entirely on a system of
exclusion, censure and silencing. We have found, over the years, peer review being
used tactically to deny publications, invited submissions to anthologies on secularism
being suddenly rejected for merely questioning this academic consensus on Modi, our
words in interviews misquoted and misrepresented egregiously in articles seeking to
demonize us as Hindu fundamentalists, and our responses declined the courtesy of
publication by journals and magazines, even as mere letters to the editor. It is a very
sorry state of affairs indeed that an area of scholarship in academia that purports to
represent the lives, struggles and aspirations of over one billion people has descended
into such a murky and incestuous miasma of meaningless, dishonest and self-righteous
posturing.

For our part, we wish to merely caution readers in academia and outside about the
prejudiced nature and questionable intent of the original petition against Mr. Modi. An
open debate on India, Hinduism, and Narendra Modi has been made virtually
impossible in academia today as a result of this cliquish and prejudiced culture of

exclusion and censorship in South Asian studies. We urge our colleagues to rise above
their prejudices and shortcomings and help restore the communitys trust in academia,
and in particular, in the field of study that exists in their name.