The latest victim of Hindutva wrath is Professor Ganesh Devy. A former professor of English at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Prof Devy, a renowned cultural critic and rationalist thinker, was scheduled to deliver a lecture at IIT-Mumbai on Wednesday. A recipient of the Padma Shri, Prof Devy’s lecture was finalised months ago and he was all set to speak on “The Crisis Within: On Knowledge and Education in India”. The students and faculty members of IIT-Mumbai were eagerly waiting to feast on an intellectual interaction with him. But at the last movement, they were shocked to be informed that the lecture had been cancelled by the administration due to “unforeseen circumstances”.

A scholar of international fame, Prof Devy was all set to leave for Mumbai. But a day before the scheduled lecture, he was informed by a person about the cancellation of the event. Talking to the press, he expressed his disappointment: “Such last-minute cancellations do leave a bitter taste.”

Commenting on the cancellation of the event, Prof Devy told The Times of India (February 1), “It is difficult for me to understand the motivation behind calling off the event. If I could deliver a lecture at IIT-Guwahati, another central institute, governed by the same regulations, then why not IIT-Bombay?” Note that He spoke at IIT- Guwahati in October 2023 on “Describing India: People’s Movements and Knowledge Production. But IIT-Mumbai seemed to have shuddered at the prospect of his intellectual expression on its campus.

Following the cancellation of the lecture, the students of IIT-Mumbai expressed their disappointment. Some wrote on social media against the decision of the administration. Condemning the act of administration, Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (IIT-Mumbai), read out a portion of Prof Devy’s book as a mark of protest.

It appears that the cancellation of Prof Devy’s lecture has less to do with academic and administrative reasons than political factors. Recent, previous records show that the administration of IIT-Mumbai had cancelled lectures under political pressure. For example, Prof Achin Vanaik of the University of Delhi was invited to deliver a lecture on “Israel-Palestine: The Historical Context” in November last year. But the event was cancelled. After the cancellation of the talk, dozens of students sent a letter to the authorities concerned, adding that such an act was “tantamount to destroying our academic freedom”. However, the administration did not pay any heed to the student’s concerns.

The reason for cancellation is not difficult to understand. Prof Vanaik, an eminent scholar and critical voice in international politics, has been a vocal supporter of the just cause of Palestine. His views are not liked by the pro-establishment scholars, administrators and mainstream media houses as the foreign policy under the Modi Government has heavily tilted towards Israel.

Similarly, Prof Devy is a big champion of diversity, pluralism and secularism. Moreover, his scholarship and life have been committed to upholding the rights of marginalised communities. As a result, the Hindu Right considers him to be a formidable opponent to their ideology of majoritarianism, exclusion and cultural supremacy.

Prof Devy is a scholar, writer, philosopher, activist and foot-soldier of the rational and progressive movements. He belongs to Maharashtra, the land of Phule and Ambedkar and his lifelong mission is to act as an antidote to the communal venom produced from Nagpur. He is an avid reader as well as a tireless traveller, interacting with people and learning from them. While he spent decades at the university teaching English literature, a great portion of his later life went on amid the indigenous people of the country. While he has a mastery of literature, language, linguistics, anthropology, history and many more subjects, he regards praxis as a higher form of human activity. Giving lectures within the classrooms and seminar halls is important to him but speaking truth to the power, unlike arm-chaired scholars, is far more important. In 2015, he was among the first scholars to return awards against the prevailing culture of intolerance within the country after the coming of the BJP/RSS-backed regime.

One of Prof Devy’s missions has been to protect the linguistic diversity of India. He considers the survival of many languages important for the survival of democracy. His thesis is that linguistic diversity acts as an antidote to the rise of authoritarianism. The same zeal for protecting linguist diversity encouraged him to carry out the People’s Linguistic Survey of India in 2010. The research work did documentation of around 780 living languages spoken across India. His commitment to the rights of the Adivasi community made him found the Bhasha Research and set up the Adivasi Academy in Tejgarh.

Recently Prof Devy along with his like-minded scholars published a book, The Indians: Histories of a Civilization (2022) to counter the Hindu Right’s agenda of communalising history. While the agenda of Hindu Right has been backed up by the state machinery, the project of Prof Devy was carried out with the support of the people’s support. The success of the book has further angered communal forces.

The cancellation of Prof Devy’s lecture is a part of the wider assault on democratic spaces within the academic institutes and outside. During the last ten years, a large portion of the democratic spaces created after decades of struggles has been squeezed. Besides, the autonomy of the public institutes has been attacked and their independent functioning has interfered to promote a particular ideology. In other words, the public authority and institutions have become undeclared spokespersons of the ruling ideology.

Worse still, the mainstream media is under huge pressure and is forced to sing praises for the current regimes and exclude the voices of the discontented. As a result, anyone who is critical of RSS/BJP ideology and is a firm believer in rational, secular and progressive values, has become a target under the current BJP and its allies-led regimes.

(The author is a Delhi-based journalist. He has taught political sciences at NCWEB Centres of Delhi University.)

Related:

Ganesh Devy’s lecture cancelled: IIT-Bombay

“Go beyond caste and religion when you’re thinking of getting married”: Cultural Activist Ganesh Devy

“Attack on Gauri Lankesh is On the Soul & Metaphor of Democracy”: Ganesh Devy

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But as the controversy detailed below shows, deep-rooted intolerance has now become legitimate in Modi’s vibrant Gujarat. On May 20, 2006, Dr Ganesh Devy expressed his views in Tehelka on the prevalent atmosphere in the state. His words created a literary storm with Gujarati writers of repute hurling personal abuse and even venom. In his article, tracing the source of the growing violence in Gujarat, Ganesh Devy told Tehelka that there was a relationship between a society’s acquisitive tendency and the emergence of violence. He also talked about the role of the ‘decent’ people in breeding hatred.

Dr Devy founded the Bhasha Tribal Academy in Tejgadh, 92 km from Vadodara. He was instrumental in publishing Dhol, a magazine brought out simultaneously in ten tribal languages. Through his writing, he explains to non-tribals why we should get rid of our obsession with the mission of bringing tribals into the mainstream.

Ironically, though Tehelka is not read widely in Gujarat, alert eyes were quick to remedy this. Photocopies of the piece were circulated and nearly everybody who is anybody in Gujarati literature reacted angrily to Devy’s comments. Articles that appeared in newspapers and writers made statements demanding that Devy tender a public apology. Angry and vicious views expressed by litterateurs Shirish Panchal, Ranjana Argade and Sitanshu Yashashchandra confirmed what Devy had been brave enough to say.

An imminent meet of the Gujarat Sahitya Academy was scheduled to be held at the Tejgadh institute. Following the outbreak of intolerance, Dr Devy was threatened; apologise or the venue would be shifted. Finally, the meeting was held at Mandvi in Kutch. Author and activist Mahasweta Devi declined to attend the meet at the new venue. Devy wanted to avoid any campaign in his solidarity. He, like many others, leads a precarious life in Gujarat.

June 2002: At a meeting at the Gujarati Sahitya Parishad in Ahmedabad in June 2002, ostensibly to discuss the aftermath of the genocide, speaker after speaker sang praises of the tolerance religion preaches but none wanted to support a proposal for the restoration of Sufi poet, Wali Dakhani or Wali Gujarati’s tomb, flattened in the dark hours of the night on March 1, 2002 by bulldozers of the Congress-dominated Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation. Suddenly, rationalist writers began claiming that the tomb was an encroachment and angry voices asked those who had made the proposal whether they were concerned about earthquake victims or only the delay of relief to Muslims. The faces of the very people who had been singing paeans to tolerance were now distorted by hatred.

Archived from Communalism Combat, June 2007 Year 13    No.123, Genocide's Aftermath Part I, Hindu Taliban 3

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The Muslim hatred practised here is not conscious or learnt. It is just somehow normal, as nature would have meant it to be. There is no bitterness of partition here, as is the case with Punjab. There is only the deep, almost genetic, knowledge of Somnath and the invasions and an accumulation of prejudices. Then there is a huge void in their memory until Gandhi arrives.

I often wonder how it must feel to be a Muslim in Gujarat. I shudder to think what it must require to live at the wrong end of so much hatred, contempt and threat. Do they have a strategy of reaction?
Is something in the process of evolving?

Gandhi, I have to say, is not a popular man in Gujarat; they merely pay him lip service. You do not become a bad man in Gujarat if you hate Muslims, you are normal. Decent people hate Muslims. And it is not a city phenomenon alone; this is true of villages as well. If a Muslim is traumatised, it is a normal thing. Just to give a sense of how Gujarati Hindus relate to Muslims, I will come to the Narmada issue. Gujarat is extremely pro-dam and, therefore, extremely anti-Medha Patkar. Gujaratis will call all pro-Medha people Muslims. Intolerance in Gujarat is unanimous. If Muslims are hated, entire Gujarat will hate them. If Medha is seen as an ‘enemy’, all of Gujarat will look at her as an enemy. In that sense, Gujarat has treated Medha as much as an ‘enemy’ or a ‘fundamentalist’ as Muslims are treated. The minds have got locked here. The culture of disagreement and dissent is pervasively shunned. This is so even when Gujarat is not a feudal state in terms of its economic make-up.

Some years ago, Habib Tanvir wanted to come and stay and work in Vadodara. He did not find a house for six months. Eventually, he went back. Some of us tried to find him a place to stay but nobody was willing (to give him accommodation). My own landlord at the time, a perfectly decent man otherwise, refused. Rauf Valiullah, an honest and purposeful Congress MP (member of parliament) was killed by gangsters in the centre of Ahmedabad a few years ago. Not even the Congress party made a noise about it. I think because Rauf was a Muslim. There was no sense of loss or outrage when Ahsan Jaffri was killed. There is no political or ideological divide in Gujarat on the Muslim question; even the Congress hates Muslims.

I have a young Muslim associate who has been pursuing postgraduate studies. After the 2002 violence, I suddenly noticed that he was having a problem trying to form his sentences while speaking. He used to write clearly but I saw that his writing too was breaking up. In fact, he wasn’t able to write. This was a typical case of aphasia, which is a condition of loss of speech and articulation caused by external trauma. Gujarat is probably the only state that has a sizeable Muslim population but no Urdu paper. I wonder if there is something to it, a state of collective aphasia. I often wonder how it must feel to be a Muslim in Gujarat. I shudder to think what it must require to live at the wrong end of so much hatred, contempt and threat. Do they have a strategy of reaction? Is something in the process of evolving? I do not know. n

— Tehelka News, Vol.3 May 20, 2006

Archived from Communalism Combat, June 2007  Year 13  No.123, Genocide's Aftermath Part I, Hindu Taliban 4

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