On 18th October, a letter by ‘sociologists’ surfaced on social media contextualising the rape and beheading of Jews by Islamic terrorist org Hamas. As the letter was written on behalf of the sociologists, a call was made to the sociologists worldwide to co-sign the letter. Hundreds of sociologists obliged and signed it using the Google Form provided.
Initially, anyone could sign the letter using any name by submitting the Google Form, which resulted in some vandalism to the letter. There were names like Adolf Hitler and notorious Nazi doctor Josef Mengele among the list of signatories. After the vandalism was pointed out on social media, the author restricted voting for the letter, and now names appear under the letter only after they are verified by moderators.
When checked, the only name that was not anonymous that was accessing the letter at that time was Michael Rodríguez-Muñiz, who is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. His post on X (formerly Twitter) was the first to mention the letter, hinting at him being the author.
Among the signatories, some names stood out as they were of Indian origin. The first name we investigated was Professor Srila Roy, Professor of Sociology at Wits University in South Africa.
Stop Hindu Hate Advocacy Network (SHHAN) mentioned her in one of their posts about the signatories. They pointed out that Roy had rooted for the infamous anti-Hindu conference “Dismantling Global Hindutva Conference” (DGHC).
Srila Roy Prof at @WitsUniversity, South Africa, listed at no.45, was a massive supporter of the Dismantling Global Hindutva Conference, 2021, denied Hinduphobia, called Indians 'occupiers', promotes Muslims Brotherhood stooges that equate Zionism and Hindutva. https://t.co/HZFpAeJxvL pic.twitter.com/KxhpknR77k
— Stop Hindu Hate Advocacy Network (SHHAN) (@HinduHate) October 25, 2023
In August 2021, she urged people to join the conference. She wrote on X, “Join this terrific conference to learn about Hindutva, a deeply entrenched right-wing nationalist movement in India with major traction in the diaspora. NB: there is no such thing as Hinduphobia; there is Hindu supremacy.” It is often seen that anti-Hindu forces run a narrative that there is no “Hinduphobia”.
After DGHC faced worldwide backlash, she was one of those who supported it and urged her followers to sign the statement in solidarity with the conference. Though the page containing a list of signatories no longer exists, there is an archive from October 2022 with a list of 1,100 signatories, which can be checked here.
Another name that we spotted on the list was Radhika Mongia, Associate Professor of Sociology at York University. According to several websites, she was a member of the ad hoc organizing committee of the Dismantling Global Hindutva Conference. She was also one of the signatories who signed the letter in support of the conference that was mentioned above.
The third name on the list was Nandini Sunder, who was one of the speakers at the Dismantling Global Hindutva Conference. Nandini Sundar, quite privileged herself, is a professor of sociology at the Delhi School of Economics. She is also the wife of Siddharth Varadarajan, the founding editor of far-left Hindumisic website ‘The Wire‘. Nandini Sundar, who writes for various platforms, including her husband’s The Wire, was once accused of a tribal man’s murder in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma. She was accused of provoking the villagers against the government. It was claimed that the professors threatened to burn houses if villagers did not support Maoists. However, with the Congress party forming the government in Chattisgarh, Nandini Sundar was given a clean chit in the murder case.
Some other India names spotted in the list of signatories include:
Rajni Palriwala, Professor (retd.) University of Delhi
- Papori Bora, Assistant Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University
- Abhijit Dasgupta, Professor of Sociology (Retd)
- Maitrayee Chaudhuri . Retired Professor. Jawaharlal Nehru University
- Satish Deshpande, Professor (Retired), University of Delhi
- Suranjan Sinha, independent researcher, formerly University of Delhi, Sociology faculty
- Ruchi Chaturvedi Associate Professor, University of Cape Town
- Susila Gurusami, Assistant Professor, UIC CLJ
- Pallavi Banerjee, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Calgary
- Nandita Sharma, Professor, Sociology, University of Hawaii at Manoa
- Didti Mitra, Associate Professor, Sociology,
- And many others, including professors, research associates and students
Dismantling Global Hindutva Conference
Dismantling Global Hindutva (DGH) was a three-day virtual conference organised in September 2021 that aimed to target Hinduism to fight Hindutva. Dismantling Global Hindutva (DGH) conference prompted Hinduphobia through fear-mongering without substantial evidence, delegitimizing Hindu critiques, and created a double standard by singling out Hindutva. The conference denied the existence of Hinduphobia and downplayed the concerns of the Hindu community.
