Havard Faculty Slam Ram Katha Event at Sanders, Question University’s Involvement

New Delhi: “I dedicate this whole Ram Katha to Harvard University,” said spiritual leader Morari Bapu at the end of a nine-day Ram Katha held at the university’s Sanders Theatre last month.

The katha and an accompanying academic conference had taken the university by storm in the months leading up to it, with professors alarmed by the university’s endorsement given the event’s religious nature, The Harvard Crimson reported.

The Ram Katha ran from August 15-23 and was funded by TRUDANA – a UK-based charity run by Lord Dolar Popat’s son Paavan Popat. The charity also paid for the academic conference. However, the event got mired in controversy after the extent of involvement by the Mittal Institute came into question.

An email to faculty with involvement in South Asian Studies at Harvard University advertising the event prompted concern, then outrage. Finally, the university was forced to scrub its name off the event. But the damage seemed to have been done.

The controversy

On June 18, several faculty members received an email invitation to 'The Living Ramayana' event. The email described the nine-day Ram Katha by Bapu, with more than 1,000 people expected to attend. The email raised concerns about the use of Harvard and its Mittal South Asia Institute to facilitate what the faculty viewed as a religious rather than academic activity.

The timing of the event, scheduled before the start of the fall semester, also raised questions about its intended audience – “primarily a non Harvard audience and a non-academic ambition” a statement by the faculty said.

The invitation also mentioned an accompanying academic conference, to be held in short evening sessions from August 16-18, but provided few details. Further, a set of activities in Hindi was scheduled from August 20-22, involving scholars and reciters invited by Bapu.

Concerned about the nature of the event, some faculty members approached the principal organisers – Diana Eck, Swayam Bagaria and Hitesh Hathi – seeking details about the Ram Katha and the conference. They also sought information about the event's sponsors, donors, funding and how the event had come to be organised.

Faculty members approached colleagues on the Mittal Institute Steering Committee, some of whom revealed that they had not been consulted for the event’s planning. They found that few, if any, were able to provide information about the planning process or the rationale behind the event.

It later came to light that the Ram Katha and conference were being funded through charitable entities by Lord Popat and his family. The donors had initially approached faculty at Harvard Divinity School, but the school had declined to host a katha.

On July 16, the faculty members wrote to senior university administrators, sending a letter to the Vice-Provost for International Affairs and copying the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Provost.

On July 19, approximately ten faculty members met with Mittal Institute leadership. Until this meeting, all publicity surrounding the event explicitly linked the katha and the conference, and only identified the Mittal institute as their sponsor. This, while the Mittal Institute leadership had said there was meant to be a “red line” between the conference, sponsored by the institute, and the Ramayana recitations, sponsored by the donors.

Some faculty members proposed moving the katha to an off-campus venue to distance it from the sponsorship of the Mittal Institute and Harvard University. The institute’s leadership deemed this impractical. Instead, it was decided that the academic conference would be moved to a different venue on the Harvard campus, signalling a distinction between the conference and the Ram Katha.

Some faculty members, however, argued that this would not address the broader perception that Harvard was sponsoring a religious activity. On July 20, the institute’s webpage for the event was placed behind password protection and all publicity scrubbed of Harvard’s name.

Sanders Theatre

Another concern related to the use of Sanders Theatre. Although the theatre is available for private bookings, such bookings for speakers, panels and conferences require departmental or organisational support. The faculty members noted that the Mittal Institute had supported the request to use Sanders Theatre for the katha.

They also said the funding for the academic conference was being provided by the same donor funding the katha, at the request of Mittal Institute leadership.

Then, on July 29, following a series of meetings with Harvard’s Office of General Counsel and Harvard Public Affairs and Communications, Hathi informed the concerned faculty that the katha and scholarly presentations would continue as planned at Sanders Theatre, but without Mittal Institute’s involvement.

According to Hathi, the event would proceed on the basis of an independent contract between the event sponsors and Sanders Theatre.

“We are glad to see no formal connection between the Mittal Institute or other  academic entities at Harvard with the planned event. We remain troubled  nonetheless by the potential effects of this gathering, which would surely not have  taken place at Sanders Theater without the initial encouragement and support of the  Mittal Institute, on Harvard’s reputation and ability to pursue excellent and objective  research on South Asia. We also worry about the message it will send to the  University’s large and diverse South Asian community, including students, faculty,  and staff,” a statement from the faculty said.

An earlier version of this report erroneously named Swayam Bagaria among the principle organisers of the event. The error is regretted.

The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.