IIM-A invites controversial speaker, students up in arms

Students of India’s premier management B-school, the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, are up in arms against the institute officials for inviting author and activist Rahul Easwar, whose views, they claim, have been “repressive” towards the queer community and “problematic” on many levels in the past. Easwar has been invited by the Vikram Sarabhai Library of the institute on February 8 to deliver a talk on his book 'Philosophical Vedanta: Psychometrics of Spirituality’.

When the details of the lecture spread across the campus, some students collectively sent an email, expressing their concerns and objection to the institutes decision of inviting him. Nearly 60 students joined the few who expressed their concerns.

Emails accessed by DNA stated: “We, undersigned students of IIM-A, are deeply hurt and concerned owing to the fact that our library is facilitating a talk by Rahul Easwar on February 8. Our institute has had many eminent speakers whose talks have benefited the IIM-A community immensely. Apart from upholding academic excellence, the IIM-A community has also very visibly taken a progressive and inclusive stance on social issues. We believe that the invitee Rahul Easwar represents just the opposite of these values that we hold.… We believe that providing a publicly renowned platform like that of IIM-A sends a wrong message about what we stand for. Mr Easwar's repressive and veiled homophobic comments are very much in the public space. Even though the topic of the talk is not directly related to the issue of queer rights, we believe that Mr Easwar should not even be accorded a platform at IIM-A, given his publicly known views, which advocate 'corrective' measures for somebody's sexual orientation. Just to take an example, will we allow Pravin Togadia or Sadhvi Prachi to give a talk on the campus, and will we believe their assurance that they will talk about something else and not rake up anything controversial? In our view, Mr Easwar is exactly the same.”

The official replied to the students saying: “The talk is on the book only and having read the book, I assure you that there is nothing related to the issues you are objecting to. While we may differ in our views, do you not think that we should tolerate others views, unless it is illegal or not allowed by law? I personally think that we should at an academic institution respect this freedom. I do not in any way intend to hurt the sentiments of anyone. At the same time, I would not like to be a party to suppression of anyone’s views, leave alone cancel a book talk. The book is on psychology and spirituality and has no reference to anything offensive.”

A professor, requesting anonymity on the issue, said that the students are raking up the issue for no reason. “We need to promote freedom of speech. Students should atleast attend the talk before demeaning any speaker on campus,” the professor said.

When DNA asked IIM-A officials about the matter, a statement from the institute mentioned: “Rahul Easwar is currently a participant of our 3-Tier Programme: Senior Leadership Programme, and will be delivering a lecture on his book — ‘Philosophical Vedanta: Psychometrics of Spirituality’.”

Speaking to DNA, Easwar said, “I am aware of the students protesting against my talk. I respect student activism. All I would want to say is that everyone should come for the talk, question me, grill me... India is a democratic nation and there should be respectful disagreements. I am not against homosexuals, but all I am saying is that there is no scientific conclusion yet on the whole idea of sexual orientation at birth.”