Since the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act (or CAA) in December 2019, there have been massive protests across India. At the time of its announcement, the spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Jeremy Laurence, expressed immediate concern about the CAA in a press briefing as “fundamentally discriminatory in nature.”
We came together at the Centre for India and South Asia Research and the Institute for Asian Research at UBC’s School of Public Policy and Global Affairs in concern about these recent developments in India. With the aim of better understanding the impacts of the CAA, our units hosted two “Teach Ins” in February with various students, faculty members, and community members in attendance.
Our speakers on February 5 included Joanna Chiu (Journalist), Muhammad Zaman (Anthropologist, Consultant), Dionne Bunsha (journalist), Lara Jesani (Lawyer), and Milind Kandlikar (UBC Faculty); on February 25, the event featured: Sara Shneiderman (UBC Faculty); Nakul Sawhney (filmmaker) and Gurpreet Singh (journalist, radio host, editor).
We planned these “Teach Ins” to provide a space for respectful dialogue; a space where speakers can share their insights freely and where students and others can ask their questions. However, at both sessions, several audience members repeatedly disrupted our speakers and ignored requests to withhold their interventions. These uninvited interventions were disruptive and often made with a belligerent or mocking tone. On February 25th, one speaker was allegedly threatened by an audience member after the event concluded.
This disruptive behavior infringes on the academic freedom of everyone at the university, and limits the space for debate, discussion, and learning. It mirrors that which is happening in India today: many peaceful protests, and particularly those at universities, have been met with violence and repression.
The Centre for India and South Asia Research sponsors talks that engage with all aspects of South Asian worlds, past and present. In addition to a wide range of talks on the environment, history, literature, public health, and the arts, this year we have also held events responding to ongoing developments in South Asia, to provide fora at UBC for discussion and to build awareness of what is happening on campus. It was in this spirit that the “Teach Ins” were arranged. As individual faculty members, we will not allow this space to be compromised and we will continue to uphold and reaffirm the Senate Statement on Academic Freedom on this and all other topics:
The members of the University enjoy certain rights and privileges essential to the fulfilment of its primary functions: instruction and the pursuit of knowledge. Central among these rights is the freedom, within the law, to pursue what seems to them as fruitful avenues of inquiry, to teach and to learn unhindered by external or non-academic constraints, and to engage in full and unrestricted consideration of any opinion.
This freedom extends not only to the regular members of the University, but to all who are invited to participate in its forum. Suppression of this freedom, whether by institutions of the state, the officers of the University, or the actions of private individuals, would prevent the University from carrying out its primary functions.
All members of the University must recognize this fundamental principle and must share responsibility for supporting, safeguarding and preserving this central freedom. Behaviour that obstructs free and full discussion, not only of ideas that are safe and accepted, but of those which may be unpopular or even abhorrent, vitally threatens the integrity of the University’s forum. Such behaviour cannot be tolerated.
Dr. Anne Murphy, Director, CISAR
Dr. Timothy Cheek, Director, IAR
Dr. Maxwell Cameron, Director, SPPGA
