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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | For liberals and leftists, NaMo is still 'No Go' area -Chidanand Rajghatta

For liberals and leftists, NaMo is still 'No Go' area -Chidanand Rajghatta

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published Published on Mar 5, 2013   modified Modified on Mar 5, 2013
-The Times of India

WASHINGTON: For liberal, leftist torchbearers, NaMo is still No Go — even virtual contact is anathema.

The man at the center of the agitation resulting in Wharton Business School cancelling the keynote address by Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi (NaMo for headline writers and tweeple) has a long record of liberal activism, and believes the decision by the alumni enhances the prestige of both the students and the university.

Dr Toorjo Ghose, who kickstarted the online petition last week to scupper Modi's schedule address to the Wharton India Economic Forum (WIEF), is an assistant professor at University of Pennsylvania's social policy school. His work focuses on structural interventions in the area of substance abuse, homelessness and HIV, both at the domestic and international levels.

He was joined in the petition by Ania Loomba, the Catherine Bryson Professor of English, who has worked on left-wing female activism in India, and Suvir Kaul, the AM Rosenthal Professor of English, who has edited a collection of essays on Partition.

Ghose has also worked on the Gates Foundation-funded Parivartan HIV intervention project with sex workers in India, and is currently collaborating with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, on an HIV risk reduction intervention study with substance users. But amid his academic work, he is a relentless campaigner for social justice and human rights. He finds the idea of even Skype address by Modi offensive.

"We don't want to give Modi any platform," he said in a phone interview on Monday when asked if he and allied activists couldn't have questioned the Gujarat Chief Minister publicly about issues that agitated them if he were allowed to Skype-talk at the Wharton conference. "Even a country as indiscriminating as US has revoked his visa, so are not in favor of offering him any forum to establish his credentials."

Interestingly, one of WIEF's speakers in previous years who did not attract the attention of Ghose and his associates was BJP MP Varun Gandhi, who was accused of hate speech and more recently acquitted of the charges.

Ghose said the petition against Modi's address that he started last week had gathered some 250 signatures from a range of international academics and students, and it had a salutary effect on the Wharton alumni. Their "courageous" decision would enhance their prestige, he added. However, the petition was largely initiated by Ghose and his associates at University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) but not backed the faculty of the Wharton B-school.

Wharton alumni itself was conflicted about the issue before deciding to scrub the invite to Modi. In a statement emailed to TOI, the student organizing body said it was "extremely impressed with Mr Modi's credentials, governance, ideologies and leadership which was the primary reason for the invitation."

"We do not endorse any political view and do not support any specific ideology. Our goal as a team is only to stimulate valuable dialogue on India's growth story," the statement said, adding, rather contradictorily, "Even as we stand by our decision to invite him, we believe that this court of action (of cancelling the keynote) would be most appropriate in light of the reactions of multiple stakeholders involved."

At least one stakeholder didn't react well to the purported slight to Modi. The Adani group pulled out from its platinum sponsorship of the WIEF. As of Monday, the WIEF website had taken down Adani's name from its panel of sponsors, but the students said the March 22-23 event would not be affected because there were other sponsors. Deutsch Bank and Colors Viacom were listed as the silver sponsors.


The Times of India, 5 March, 2013, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/For-liberals-and-leftists-NaMo-is-still-No-Go-area/articleshow/18802914.cms


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