New Delhi: A group of students and teachers from two Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) have written to the Prime Minister, observing that his silence on the rising intolerance in the country emboldens the “hate-filled voices”.
The letter sent to the Prime Minister’s office had 183 signatories, including 16 faculty members, from the IIMs in Ahmedabad (IIM-A) and Bangalore (IIM-B). A copy was also sent to The Wire.
“Your silence on the rising intolerance in our country, Honourable Prime Minister, is disheartening to all of us who value the multicultural fabric of our country. Your silence, Honourable Prime Minister, emboldens the hate-filled voices and threatens the unity and integrity of our country,” the letter says.
Urging the prime minister to steer the country away from “forces that seek to divide us”, the letter noted that the Indian constitution gives every citizen the right to practice any religion without fear and shame.
“There is a sense of fear in our country now – places of worship, including churches in recent days, are being vandalised, and there have been calls to take arms against our Muslim brothers and sisters. All of this is carried out with impunity and without any fear of due process,” the letter said.
The letter sought the PM’s “leadership to turn our minds and hearts, as a nation, away from inciting hatred against our people”.
Also read: ‘Complicity of Police; Forced Conversion a Myth’: PUCL on Attacks on Christians in Karnataka
“We believe that a society can focus on creativity, innovation and growth, or society can create divisions within itself. We want to build an India that stands as an exemplar of inclusiveness and diversity in the world. We, the undersigned faculty, staff and students of the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, hope and pray that you will lead the country in making the right choices,” it added.
According to the Indian Express, the letter was drafted by five faculty members of IIM-B: assistant professor, strategy, Prateek Raj; associate professor, public policy, Deepak Malghan; associate professor, entrepreneurship, Dalhia Mani; associate professor, decision sciences, Rajluxmi V. Murthy and associate professor, public policy, Hema Swaminathan.
Other faculty signatories from IIM-B include Rahul Dé, dean of programmes and chairperson of the Office of International Affairs and Manaswini Bhalla, chairperson of the economics and social sciences section.
From IIM-A, JSW chair professor of innovation and public policy and dean of alumni and external relations, Rakesh Basant was one of the three faculty members who signed the letter.
Speaking to the Express, Raj said that a group of students and faculty took the initiative as “silence was not an option any more.”
“For far too long, the mainstream discourse has dismissed the voices of hate as the fringe. That’s how we are here,” he said.
He stated that the objective of the signatories was to underline the fact that “if voices of hate are loud, voices of reason should be louder”.
The report also stated that while for Raj, it was Bangalore MP Tejasvi Surya’s speech calling for a “quota” for Hindus to convert Muslims and Christians, there was a similar trigger for other signatories, such as the recent attacks on Christian congregations and the genocidal calls by the Haridwar Dharam Sansad.
The full text of letter is appended below:
4th January 2022
Dear Honourable Prime Minister:
We, the undersigned, request you and our elected members to preserve the culture of tolerance and diversity that defines our great nation. Hate speeches and calls for violence against communities based on religion/caste identities is unacceptable. Our Constitution gives us the right to practice our religion with dignity – without fear, without shame. There is a sense of fear in our country now – places of worship, including churches in recent days, are being vandalised, and there have been calls to take arms against our Muslim brothers and sisters. All of this is carried out with impunity and without any fear of due process.
We expect our leaders to safeguard our Constitutional rights. We expect our leaders to ensure safety and security for every Indian citizen. We expect our leaders to motivate us to be human and look beyond differences based on caste, religion, language, and other identities. Your silence on the rising intolerance in our country, Honourable Prime Minister, is disheartening to all of us who value the multicultural fabric of our country. Your silence, Honourable Prime Minister, emboldens the hate-filled voices and threatens the unity and integrity of our country.
We request you, Honourable Prime Minister, to stand firm against forces that seek to divide us. We ask your leadership to turn our minds and hearts, as a nation, away from inciting hatred against our people. We believe that a society can focus on creativity, innovation, and growth, or society can create divisions within itself. We want to build an India that stands as an exemplar of inclusiveness and diversity in the world.
We, the undersigned faculty, staff, and students of the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) and Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA), hope and pray that you will lead the country in making the right choices.
Yours sincerely,
(All signatures below are in a personal capacity and alphabetical order)
1
A Ramyatanuja
2
Abhinav D R P
3
Abhinav Kanoria
4
Abhishek Jaisingh
5
Abhishek Kujur
6
Abhishek Shaw
7
Abid Ahmed Khan
8
Abu Rehan Abbasi
9
Abu Shahir M S
10
Adarsh Chamaria
11
Adithya Anand
12
Aditya Prakash
13
Ajinkya Patil
14
Akash Kamble
15
Akshay Pratap Horo
16
Alpesh Sosa
17
Anasha KP
18
Anisha Jain
19
Anjali S
20
Ankur Sarin
21
Anmol Kankariya
22
anoop chhabra
23
Anshul Kapoor
24
Anshuman Paranjape
25
Anupama Kondayya
26
Anuraag Shetty
27
Apurva Hyanki
28
Arjit Kumar Prince
29
Arjun K
30
Arnab Biswas
31
Arpit S
32
Arun Mathew
33
Asfia Aejaz
34
Ashish Sen
35
Ashok P
36
Asif Shaikh
37
Ayush Mishra
38
Balakrishna B
39
Barnali Priyadarshini
40
Bharghvi Prajapati
41
Bhavana Gaddam
42
BIBEK BHATTACHARYA
43
Chadive Roopesh Reddy
44
Chitra Andrade
45
Dalhia Mani
46
Debopriyo Ray
47
Deepak Malghan
48
Deepika Sharan
49
Deepti Sharma
50
Dinanta Ballabh
51
Dipali Sharma
52
Durvesh Chauganjkar
53
Gourav Nayak
54
Hariharasudhan Ayyappan
55
Harshal Dongre
56
Harshitha R
57
Hema Swaminathan
58
Hemanshu Dhangar
59
Himanshu Shekhar
60
Ishika Somani
61
Ishwar Murthy
62
Jeevan Nagaraj
63
Jithin Krishnan
64
Jugal Choudhary
65
Jyotesh Singh
66
Kanchan Mukherjee
67
Kapil Gupta
68
Kaushal Kumar
69
Ketki Kundawar
70
Khalil Ahmad
71
Kranthi Chaitanya
72
Krishna Wadhwa
73
Kritika M
74
Kumari Suman
75
Lakshmi C Rajeev
76
Madhur Butke
77
Madhusudhan K
78
Mamata Anurag Salakapurapu
79
Manasa Viswanatha
80
Manaswini Bhalla
81
Manisha Raman
82
Mansi Parmar
83
Mansi Srivastava
84
Mansur Khan
85
Md Shahrukh Anjum
86
Medha Gorantla
87
Mir Autif Mohammad
88
Mira Bakhru
89
Mohammad Farhan Maktabay
90
Mohammad Salman
91
Mohit Sharma
92
Mopidevi Jyothi Swaroop
93
Mrutyunjaya Sahoo
94
Mudit Vaish
95
Mugilarasan K
96
Muneer Kalliyil
97
Murari Srinivasa
98
Naman Sharma
99
Navdeep Mathur
100
Naveen Meena
101
Nazhar Hussain
102
Neha Gautam
103
Nelphy Rose Siby
104
Nibir Das
105
Nikhil Satish
106
Nishant Mallick
107
Nithin Kumar Peratla
108
Omer farooq
109
P C Narayan
110
Pradeep MS
111
Pradeep V
112
Pragati
113
Pranav Bhageria
114
Prateek Raj
115
Praveenkumar K
116
Rafhat Quazi
117
Rahul De
118
Rahul Kumar
119
Rahul Rao
120
Rahul Reddy Bikka
121
Rajalaxmi Kamath
122
Rajesh
123
Rajluxmi V Murthy
124
RAKESH BASANT
125
Ravi Shankar Pandey
126
Renjini Krishnan
127
Reshma MN
128
Ritika Goel
129
Ritwik Banerjee
130
Rohit Aman
131
Roshni P
132
Rudrabhatla Bharath Kumar
133
S Parthasarathy
134
S. Athar
135
Sagarika Barman
136
Sahil Arora
137
Sahil Parmar
138
Sai Dattathrani
139
Sai Sowmya Aasi
140
Sai Yayavaram
141
Sakshi Yadav
142
Samarjit Dey
143
Sandeep Pandey
144
Sarang Bhat
145
Sarthak Jain
146
Sasidhar S
147
Satish Kumar Korada
148
Selvamuthu Thirukumaran M
149
Shihas Abdul Razak
150
Shiril Saju
151
Shivangi Rajora
152
Shreyas Krishna Seethapathy
153
Shubham Kumar
154
Sk Aminoor Rahman
155
Somnath Shukla
156
Srevatsan S
157
Sridharan S
158
Srikrishna Manikanta Pani JVM
159
Srinath Vigneshwar
160
Srinivasan Murali
161
Subhankar Saha
162
Sugandha BK
163
Sunil Kulkarni
164
Sunita Chawan
165
Supriya Kakade
166
Swati Bajpai
167
Tanieem
168
Tenzing Choppel Gensapa
169
Toshan Kharumnuid
170
Tushar Meshram
171
Utkarsh Sahu
172
Vaibhav Garg
173
Varun Gupta
174
Venkatalakshmi R
175
Vignesh R
176
Vijay Raj
177
Vinod Ganesh
178
Viriezo Vizo
179
Vishal Laxman Bengeri
180
Vivek
181
Vivek Kandimalla
182
Vivek Kumar
183
Zainab Feroz