UC Irvine rejects $3 million donation from group with right-wing Hindu links

[Recursion]

http://scroll.in/article/803945/a-university-in-us-rejects-3-million-donation-from-a-group-with-hindutva-links

Following nearly three months of vigorous protests from students and faculty members, a committee at the University of California, Irvine, has voted to reject two endowed chairs sponsored by an American non-profit with links to Hindutva groups, and to review two more chairs coordinated by the same foundation.

Last year, the Dharma Civilization Foundation – whose trustees have close links with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in India, and its American arm, the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh – signed agreements with UC Irvine to endow four chairs. The agreements stated that each chair would receive $1.5 million spread across five years. The holders of these chairs were to research and lecture on Vedic and Indic Civilisations, Modern India, Jainism and Sikhism at the university.

The faculty at UC Irvine’s school of humanities learned that their South Asianist colleagues had not been consulted about the endowment and were intimated only in December, several months after the agreements had been signed. Since then, both professors and students have been protesting the lack of meaningful consultation and transparency in the process of signing these contracts.

The protests forced the university to set up a panel to review the agreements, and it is this panel which rejected two chairs – the Vedic and Indic Civilisation Studies, and Modern India studies. It has, however, recommended the chairs in Jain and Sikh studies for further review.

The leader of the state-level RSS party in Maharashtra has a habit of going on TV before local elections and -- without being asked -- reminding Mumbaikars that his party does not reject political violence.

[Journeyman]

1. Cute. A university that only did its research AFTER the exam had been scored . . .

Such is the allure of easy money. It has a siren song unlike any other . . .