[Reader-list] Oppose "UCLA-Sardar Patel dissertation award"

[Navayana Publishing]

Dear friends

Instituted in 1999, the UCLA-Sardar Patel Dissertation Award (
http://www.international.ucla.edu/southasia/patel/index.asp) is its ninth
year now. I am not an academic, and have hence come to know of this award
rather late -- owing to a notice posted on H-Net.

However, even the belated knowledge of the naming of the award after Sardar
Patel has distressed and disturbed me. It is unfortunate that the award for
“the best dissertation submitted at any American university on the subject
of modern India” should be named after Sardar Patel--a man who (along with
K.M. Munshi) was responsible for the rebuilding of the Somnath temple, which
was partly destroyed by the Mahmud of Ghazni in the 11th century. Patel, as
Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, was the one of the apologists for
hindutva within the Congress. In November 1947, when the Nawab of Junagadh
sought to merge his “princely state” with Pakistan, Patel opposed this, and
directed the occupation of Junagadh by the Indian Army. At the same time, he
announced that the Somnath temple there would be rebuilt. “The restoration
of the idols would be a point of honour and sentiment with the Hindu
public,” he had said then.

This laid the foundation for the latter-day rightwing Hindutva claims over
Ayodhya and the demolition of the Babri mosque in 1992. That a dissertation
should be awarded a USD 10,000 prize in Patel's name is highly regrettable.
The award boasts of an impressive list of 'secular' recipients who seem to
have not even flinched either while applying for an award in honour of
Sardar Patel or on receiving it.

What is also shocking is that, today, the redoubtable, secular historian
Sanjay Subrahmanyam--one of the best contemporary historians from
India--adjudicates such an award in his capacity as Professor of History and
Director of CISA (the UCLA Center for India and South Asia). <
http://www.international.ucla.edu/asia/members/person.asp?Facultystaff_ID=476
>

For a history of the award and its association with UCLA, see
http://www.sardarpatelaward.com/.

While the left-secular voices in the US were rightly sensitive to the 2006
California Textbook Controversy (CTC) <
http://stopfundinghate.org/FxH/022706LettertoCBE.htm> it is regrettable that
in 1999 such an award was instituted at a premier centre such as UCLA with
no squeak of a protest. It is our silence on such issues that makes possible
larger rightwing incursions such as Saraswati Vandana or CTC. The UCLA award
bestows on a rightwing hawk like Sardar Patel respect and legitimacy in
academic circles, especially because it is 'independently' decided and
because it boasts of 'secular' recipients, such as Srirupa Roy in 2000 who
is now faculty at University of Massachusetts, Amherst (
http://www.umass.edu/polsci/faculty_staff/index.html).

The Sardar Patel award's home page unabashedly boasts: “Ordinary people in
India, conversant with the message in the Gita, regarded these three great
leaders [Gandhi, Nehru, Patel]  as yugapurushas, with a specific mission to
accomplish on earth." So Patel is an avatar, a yuga-purusha! Would it be
logical to believe that those who adjudicate the award, and receive it,
believe in the Gita and in Patel being a yug-purush? Unsurprisingly, the
board of Friends of Sardar Patel Award Association (FSPAA) (
http://www.sardarpatelaward.com/fspaa.htm) is filled with Gujarati Hindus,
mostly husband–wife couples. There is not one Muslim name among the charter
members or advisors of the Award Association--going against the priniciples
of diversity that most American universities take pride in, includng UCLA (
http://www.diversity.ucla.edu/).

What can be done now--after nine years? It is not likely that UCLA was
unaware of the politics of Vallabhai Patel and his rightwing proclivities.
Suppose the followers of V.D. Savarkar or M.S. Golwalkar should decide to
offer an endowment (like Patel's overseas friends) to UCLA, would a similar
award be instituted? Should we 'tolerate' and make concessions to the
rightwing within the Congress party and oppose only the hindutva of the
Bharatiya Janata Party? What if an award in the name of Shyama Prasad
Mookherjee (Hindu Mahasabha and Bharatiya Jan Sangh leader) should be
instituted--would his having been a minister in Jawahalal Nehru’s first
cabinet render him acceptable?

Perhaps UCLA can now reconsider its association with such an award.

Friends in the academia and others who feel similarly about this award could
write to UCLA. (
http://www.international.ucla.edu/southasia/patel/article.asp?parentid=93390
)

S. Anand
anand AT navayana.org

Publisher
Navayana (www.navayana.org)

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