“Wharton’s
Action a Wakeup Call”
By Dr.
Richard Benkin
Address to
Americans for Free Speech
Rally at the
University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia
March 23,
2013
Namaste.
My name is
Dr. Richard Benkin, a Penn alumnus and a former Wharton School student. I am also a human rights activist trying to
stop the ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Bangladesh. My apologies that illness has prevented me
from being with you today, but I appreciate the opportunity to address you remotely.
I could sit
here and rant about my alma mater’s actions; shake my fists and tell you how
cowardly they were; how much they deprived students of needed information and are thus contrary to what Wharton advertises itself as. I could tell you how the continued slander of
the great man from Ahmedabad is a slap in the face of
the Indian legal system that has exonerated him time and again, the Indian
political system that has given him an unprecedented four consecutive terms as
Gujarat’s Chief Minister, and the millions of Gujaratis
from all faiths who gave him their votes.
And I could tell you how Narendra Modi is the only national Indian leader who has supported
my human rights struggle—and that his support is not only principled but
heartfelt as well. But with the exception
of the last point, I would no doubt be repeating what others have said already.
If there is
anyone on this planet who knows what it takes to develop the Indian economy and
has the chops to do it and therefore is germane to the Wharton Indian Economic
Forum that was deprived of his presence, that person is Narendra
Modi. His
economic miracle in Gujarat has captured the imagination of Indians of all
political and religious stripes and stands as a potential model for development
throughout the subcontinent. It is a
proven solution to the economic challenges facing India in the 21st
century, and India’s future depends upon the open discussion of these various
strategies.
But Wharton’s
action had nothing to do with any of that or with academic freedom, human
rights, or economics; it had everything to do with political strategy and the
pivotal Indian elections a year away. It
should be a wake-up call for all of us.
The feeling right
now in India is almost electric. Cries
for the BJP to name Narendra Modi
its candidate for Prime Minister grow louder each day. For the first time in years, it appears that
the BJP, with Modi as its standard bearer, has a
strong chance of unseating the almost dynastic left-center Congress Party. And the anti-Indian and hyper-leftist nexus
is scared to death.
They realize
that in 2009 when they handed the BJP a crushing defeat in the last national
elections, India had not yet experienced the economic dislocation of the
worldwide recession that most other countries were feeling. Since conditions seemed “okay,” they were not
of a mind to vote for change. But today
things are different. While many of
those other economies have begun to recover, the Indian economy has stagnated. My US dollars fetched fewer and fewer rupees
with every successive trip I made to India—until this year when they got more
than they did before 2009. Inflation was at a double digit rate
throughout most of 2010 and 2011; and it crept back up again in February as
Indians saw prices on consumer items with the greatest impact on their lives
rise dramatically. And the Congress
Party’s new budget promises even more price hikes on items like railway
tickets, hitting both the rising middle class and the mass of people hard.
My own
unscientific survey of taxi and rickshaw drivers, hotel clerks, street vendors,
fellow train passengers, and others found a unanimous sentiment that things had
to change, that current policies were not going to get it done, and that in the
words that I heard again and again, “Narendra Modi needs to do for the rest of India what he did for
Gujarat.” Making the Congress Party’s
political strategists’ job even tougher is the fact that Modi’s
personal life is beyond reproach, and he has never been credibly associated
with any sort of corruption. So, what
are they left with?
Wharton
provides a clue. The one drumbeat that Modi ji’s opponents can always be counted on to sound is the
decade-old charge, still unproven, that he had something to do with the 2002
communal riots there. The problem for
Congress is that the cry has been sounded so often, few Indian voters are
likely unfamiliar with it. Those who
would not vote for Modi because of it long ago made
up their minds; another round of screeds is not likely to have an impact on the
election. But what if Congress can
convince voters that the charge itself—true or not, dismissed by the Supreme
Court or not—has cemented Modi in the minds of too many
foreigners as a human rights violator and therefore as someone unfit to lead
the country? Expect a non-stop effort by
Congress and its coteries of allies on the left to try and make that point,
truth be damned.
The good
news is that this first foray seems to have caused more support for Modi than the negative press the strategists intended. Sponsors pulled out of the conference in
protest and as today’s gathering shows, the anger was directed against the
foreigners who manipulated the situation and slapped the Indian legal system
and people in the face. It is the same
strategy the left used to try and stop Ariel Sharon from becoming Israel’s Prime
Minister with old and false charges. It
did not work then, and it will not work now.
The UK and the European Union among others have already had discussions
with Modi ji, and US Congressman Aaron Schock of Illinois noted from the floor of the United
States House that Modi is “running on a platform of
economic prosperity for all.”
So far, Modi ji and the party have done a good job of emphasizing his
economic and administrative genius while avoiding any potentially divisive issues,
and they cannot let annoyances like Wharton take them off topic. Like Republicans here in 2012, the BJP is
making the point that the incumbents have badly mishandled the people’s money
and lives. As the very long campaign
season dragged on in the US, however, the point had been made so many times as the compelling reason to vote for a
change, that even a slight upturn in the economy in the Fall
was enough to convince enough Americans not to vote for one. But while the Republicans failed to give the
people a positive alternative, the BJP and Narendra Modi are providing a strong one. And that is what scares the pants of those
who manipulated Wharton into its shameful act!
It is now in our
hands. We will NOT let them hijack the
elections and more importantly the Indian peoples’ future. We will NOT let them go unchallenged with
their lies. And we will NEVER let them
propagate their racist theories that would have us believe that only their legal system has validity!
Dhanyavaad.