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

[taraprakash]

It is one thing to speak for the cause of Hindus, it is completely different 
to spread hatred against people of other faith/s. The below mail does not 
show how Patel was against non-Hindus. If reconstructing Somnath temple 
equates Patel with SPM, those like me who speak for the reconstruction of 
Babri Masjid can be equated with Osama bin Laden. It is merely question of 
perspective.

I believe there are other ways of seeking publicity that are less cheap than 
the one currently employed by Navayana Publishing.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Navayana Publishing" <navayana at gmail.com>
To: <reader-list at sarai.net>
Sent: Sunday, July 12, 2009 9:44 AM
Subject: [Reader-list] Oppose "UCLA-Sardar Patel dissertation award"


> 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)
>
> Navayana Publishing
> 120, Ground Floor
> Shahpur Jat
> New Delhi 110049
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