To Whomever It May Concern:

Hindu Students Council, representing tens of thousands of Hindu students and alumni at Universities

throughout North America, strongly condemns a Twitter post made on December 11 by Harvard’s Kennedy

School of Government Senior Fellow Suraj Yengde. In the post, Dr. Yengde calls Hindus the “sick people of

India,” arguing that it is “their religious books who train the mind.” The post is reproduced below.

As Hindu students and allies throughout North American campuses, we feel compelled to speak out and

bring this egregious instance of Hinduphobia to your attention. Deplorably, this instance follows a line of

statements made by faculty, post-doctoral researchers, and employees and institutions attached to Harvard

University that have a chilling effect on Hindu members of the University community. As any premier

research institution, Harvard has a responsibility to balance the interest of fostering free speech with its stated

commitment to diversity, inclusion and belonging, reproduced below:

At Harvard, there is a call to action to create greater diversity, inclusion and belonging (DIB) throughout our

campus communities. We each have the opportunity — and the responsibility — to create an inclusive and

hospitable culture.

As should be clear, Yengde’s words fall into recognized categories of religious bigotry. His words imply

that Hindus are brainwashed by Hindu dharma’s revered, sacred texts and conditioned into an inherently

violent and oppressive outlook on the world. Hinduism is thus reduced to a single monolithic bloc,

inherently incapable of evincing a positive outlook towards members of other communities or classes.

: www.hindustudentscouncil.org * info@hindustudentscouncil.org

- P.O. Box 5313, Old Bridge, NJ 08857

Hindu Students Council

Calling the 900 million Hindus in India “sick” similarly vilifies Hindus as inferior, in need of being removed

and disabused of a dangerous, diseased ideology.

What is worse is that Yengde, whom Harvard calls “one of India’s leading scholars and public

intellectuals,” has a grossly distorted view of Hinduism, to put it euphemistically. We stand against violence

towards Dalits, no matter which religion they practice. Caste discrimination is a problem across South Asia

that transcends religion— Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Christians, and Muslims all encounter caste-based

discrimination across South Asia. It’s shameful that we have to put this disclaimer in our statement, but this

is exactly what Yengde’s post does. He forces Hindus to apologize for caste discrimination as if our

scriptures are to blame. This is in spite of the fact that Hindu scriptures themselves provide a rich,

foundational basis from which to battle against discrimination in all its forms.

This type of vilification and anti-religious sentiment is of course not uniquely experienced by Hindus.

Harvard has in fact recognized, and its administration acted against, this type of obvious bigotry towards other

religious groups. Yet, we find, persistently, that Harvard has never recognized even the existence of

Hinduphobia within its community, let alone its embeddedness at an institutional level. We mention here just

two other recent examples. In February, as part of its India Conference, Harvard University hosted spoken

word poet Hussain Haidry, who has insisted on using the word “Hindu” only as a descriptor for acts of terror;

he instead chooses to use “Brahminism” to refer to Hinduism which he then calls “root of all that is evil in

India.” (To point out the commonality in anti-religious bigotries here, Haidry has also justified the Holocaust)

Tweets from Hussain Haidry’s Twitter handle. These repeatedly juxtapose the word “Hindu” with “Terrorism” while also refusing to use the word “Hindu”

to describe the religion. Instead, Haidry uses “Brahmanism” to describe the religion.

In April, Harvard University Press circulated an event titled,

“Meritocracy and Democracy: The Social Life of Caste in India,”

along with a racist cartoon of Hindus from the era of British

colonialism that portrays Hindus as inherently oppressive and

manipulable. At that time, Hindu Students Council had contacted

Harvard about this incident and received no reply. How can Harvard

continue to justify suborning Hinduphobia within its ranks?

In the past, when the Hindu community contacted Harvard,

the University defended the actions of its employees under the

overarching banner of free speech. This does not pass muster. The

University has made an honorable commitment to uphold the

inclusion of all individuals at the University. When the repeated

actions of members of the community infringe on that sense of

inclusion in a manner as flagrant as anti-religious hate speech, the University must recognize its imperative to

act and speak to ensure inclusion. When the University recognizes certain kinds of anti-religious hate speech,

but remains silent when the Hindu community is explicitly attacked in this way, it unfortunately sends a clear

message to Hindus at Harvard that they do not belong. The right to free speech does not preclude—but rather

calls upon— Harvard University’s administration to speak out and affirm the belongingness of Hindus at

Harvard, condemning anti-Hindu bigotry. A failure to do so is a tacit endorsement of Yengde’s words.

Today, Harvard’s choices about how it chooses to address its own institutional Hinduphobia will speak

volumes about its values. Over the past few weeks, several members of Harvard’s community—its Medical

School and undergraduate and graduate communities—have reached out to us with grave concern over

Yengde’s words and how they may lead to their alienation within the University, in combination with the

prevailing culture of Hinduphobia that already pervades the College. Members of all faith communities

deserve to be respected and own their identity at Harvard. Will the University reduce its own commitments to

a dead letter, or reaffirm the way in which the Hindu community enriches Harvard? We urge Harvard to

embrace the latter path by, at minimum, issuing a public statement recognizing this instance of

Hinduphobia and explicitly reaffirming the inclusion of the Hindu community at Harvard.

On Behalf of Hindu Students Council,

Arnav Kejriwal

President, Hindu Students Council