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PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA, USA, October 7, 2004: Rishi Bhatuda’s letter as published in the Daily Pennsylvanian, student newspaper for the University of Pennsylvania, in response to their coverage of Ram Madhva (HPI, October 12, 2004):



As an alumnus, I found it very encouraging that the University was willing to host Ram Madhav, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh national spokesman, on Monday (“Hindu speaker creates controversy on campus,” The Daily Pennsylvanian, 10/05/04). The RSS is the world’s largest service organization, and undertakes large service projects in India that many would find daunting. It is also important for the University to understand the RSS’s ideology, which helped former Prime Minister of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee forge a historic peace initiative with Pakistan earlier this year. I, however, found the response of certain Penn professors disgusting, and the DP’s coverage of the event one-sided and disappointing. Those professors at Penn who wished to stop the talk beforehand have shown what they think of the concept of free speech. It was hammered into me during my time at Penn that free speech and the ability to hear all views were fundamental hallmarks of academic freedom. It is abhorrent to me that my alma mater employs professors who think nothing of silencing those who have different political views.



I am disappointed in the DP because it should have done a better job of gathering facts about the RSS before publishing the article. For example, it did not state that the Supreme Court of India absolved the RSS of any role in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. Nor did it note that the RSS was founded well before the Nazi ideology took hold in Germany, making it chronologically impossible for the “founders of the RSS to model themselves on Nazi practices,” as was stated in the article. In fact, the DP article did not provide one single positive fact about the RSS, nor did it research the political motives of those who protested against the speech. As a newspaper at a university, the DP should strive to do better.

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