Our ‘liberals’ have always been the first ones to demand ‘Freedom Of Expression’ for themselves while denying it to others. Looks like this liberal trait transcends borders and emigrates with them now!
On the 3rd of May 2017, Professor Makarand Paranjape became an unwitting victim of this aggressively selective intolerance at the Carleton University.
Professor Paranjape teaches English at the well-known Jawaharlal Nehru University and is on a lecture tour in UK and North America. The widely- travelled Professor, who has authored/edited over 40 books and written 150 academic articles, was in Canada to record an academic discussion with Dr. Harsha V Dehejia Adjunct Professor at the Carleton University, Ottawa. The discussion entitled ‘Drishti: Is There An Indian Way of Seeing’, was meant for the students of the Carleton University’s Hinduism Course.
Clearly the discussions and the participants had no political overtones but, can one account for the inherent likes and dislikes of those who must oppose just for the sake of effect?
We all know Prof Paranjape for his forthright views put across in a genteel manner. What was so ‘threatening’ about the topic and the speaker that it necessitated an unseemly display of unprofessional behavior from Asst. Professor Chinnaiah Jangam? By creating a ruckus, Professor Jangam succeeded in browbeating the University of Carleton to cancel the discussion which was later carried on at another venue.
A reminder of what happened at JNU, the university where Paranjape teaches English Literature, might be useful at this point.
On 7th March 2016 at a ‘celebratory’ speech by Kanhaiya Kumar then JNUSU President, Professor Paranjape took him on by asking whether he had checked his facts before delivering the speech. At this, the Professor was booed by the predominantly leftist audience and his speech was interrupted by Kanhaiya’s sloganeering.
What made the JNU Leftists uncomfortable was Paranjape’s assertion that “When we (JNU) consider ourselves to be a democratic space we should also ask ourselves if this is entirely true. Isn’t it possible that this is a left hegemonic space, where if you disagree you are silenced, you are boycotted, you are browbeaten…?”
This is precisely what happened in Carleton University, Canada. He was browbeaten and his right to freedom of speech was taken away. That was not just an isolated instance of intolerance displayed by Professor Jangam towards a fellow-academic and fellow-Indian; it was evidence of the growing tendency of the Leftists to gag opinions not in sync with their own.
The tentacles of this highly undemocratic ideology that allows no opinions that contradict or counter it, seem to have spread far beyond the troubled campus where Professor Paranjape happens to teach, and that is definitely something to worry about!
A Press Release, by an organization called ‘Overseas Friends of India (Canada)’ under the heading ‘OFI Thwarts Attempt to Suppress Dialogue on Indian Civilization’, expressed shock at the shameful incident. The Release stated: “Following this incident of suppressing free speech, a determined group of Indo-Canadian concerned citizens, most of them highly-qualified professionals, civil servants and friends of India, rose up to challenge the forces of intimidation and intellectual terrorism.”
OFI then arranged for Dr Makarand Paranjape to speak to a sizeable audience on the same subject, the very next evening on May 4, 2017. The organization is also planning to take up the issue with the administration of Carleton University.