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    Academicians call for boycott of Hebrew University seminar on Bose and India during WWII

    Synopsis

    More than 50 American and Indian academicians, have launched a campaign for boycotting Jerusalem-based Hebrew University’s upcoming seminar.

    ET Bureau
    NEW DELHI: More than 50 American and Indian academicians, including Partha Chatterjee, Aijaz Ahmad and Elisabeth Armstrong, have launched a campaign for boycotting Jerusalem-based Hebrew University’s upcoming seminar on Subhas Chandra Bose, the Indian National Army and related events in Indian history during World War II.

    On Monday, a day after Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj returned from a meeting with Arab League countries and a week after her visits to Israel and Palestine, the group released a statement appealing fellow academicians not to attend the event.

    They accused the university of being “complicit with occupation, warfare, and apartheid” and denying freedom of speech to its few Palestinian students. Speaking with ET, Vijay Prashad, one of the signatories, expressed apprehension that "India's new tilt to Israel" might mean that the issue of Palestinian occupation may be sidelined.

    During her visits to Palestine and Israel, Swaraj sought to affirm India’s friendship with both countries. However, she also said India attached the “highest importance” for the full development of bilateral ties with Israel.

    “We are concerned that India’s new tilt to Israel would mean ignoring the occupation of the Palestinians. Institutions such as the Hebrew University, which benefit from the occupation, should not be given a free pass. The Indian government and Indian civil society should not allow them to masquerade as normal institutions. These are institutions of occupation. Hebrew University violates international law, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention, 1949,” Prashad said.

    According to the group’s statement, “the academic boycott is a powerful tool for scholars to express our principled opposition to occupation, apartheid, and colonization. While all Israeli universities are deeply complicit with the state’s colonial and racist policies, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem is particularly noteworthy.”

    It then details a list of charges against the Jerusalem-based university: its Mount Scopus campus is built on Palestinian land illegally confiscated by Israel in 1968; it maintains close ties with the Israeli military industry, which is accused of war crimes against Palestinian civilians; it discriminates against Palestinians, including those who are citizens of Israel; and denies freedom of speech and protest to its few Palestinian students.

    The university didn’t respond until press time on Tuesday to an email sent by ET seeking comment.

    The creation of Israel, Palestine and India was deeply influenced by the events of the Second World War. Also, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s actions during the period have been lately discussed in greater detail, following the release of previously classified documents. The proposed conference’s agenda and the opposition to it are now likely to set off a fresh controversy.

    The Hebrew University’s official advertisement for the international conference, titled ‘The Indian Predicament: South Asia in WWII’, says the core idea is to “historicise WWII and its memory in the Indian subcontinent”. It rues that “WWII has been a marginal subject in Indian historiography, occluded by the grand themes of the transfer of power and the partition of India. Our workshop seeks to build upon existing literature and further develop a research agenda that would bring the war center stage.” Topics on which the papers are invited, until February 1, include: Fall of Singapore, Indian soldiers in different war theatres, Subhas Chandra Bose and the INA, INA Trials, Bengal Famine and others.

    Notably, the statement from the group of academicians and writers concedes that the subject matter of the international workshop is certainly one on which “an interesting discussion (can) be had about “comprehension, memory, and judgment” of WWII and the role of nationalist struggle that would productively bring historians of South Asia to discuss these questions in Jerusalem. But we cannot do so until the occupation of Palestine and blockade of Gaza ends, racial inequality inflicted on Palestinians in Israel is terminated, and the apartheid wall is dismantled.”


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