Fwd: foreign members of BORI lose voting privileges

[George Thompson]

I forward this message from Tim Lubin, at his request.  I trust that it needs
no comment.

George Thompson

In a message dated 7/7/00 1:20:40 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
tlubin at hotmail.com writes:

>
>  It has recently come to attention that the Bhandarkar Institute's
regulating
>
>  council has voted to amend the Institute's constitution to deprive foreign
>  life members of voting privileges.  This change was proposed by Dr. C. G.
>  Kashikar; as I heard it, only one committee member raised an objection.
The
>
>  ostensible reason provided was to avoid the expense of mailing out ballots
>  overseas at election time.
>
>  As I happened to be in town for yesterday's (6 July) general meeting, and
>  being (so far as I could tell) the only "foreign" member present, I took
it
>  upon myself to raise an objection.  I noted that the "Report" of the
>  Regulating Council for 1999-2000, distributed at the meeting, made no
>  mention of this major decision, nor had members been notified of it.  I
said
>
>  further that it seemed to me quite inappropriate for an international
>  research organization with a democratically constituted membership, nor
was
>  it in the best interests of the Institute.  Dr. Dhadphale, who was
>  presiding, responded simply that the decision had been taken, but could be
>  reconsidered at a later time.  He provided no other explanation.
>
>  Now I suppose it is quite likely that participation of foreign scholars in
>  voting is generally rather spotty, but this is no reason to deprive them
of
>  the right to vote.  The reason I was given is financial problem that could
>  be solved in many other ways (such as applying some extra fee to cover
>  postage for ballot papers, as is done for the Annals mailings).  It is not
a
>
>  constitutional matter, in any case.
>
>  I cannot help wondering what "foreign" means here.  Will it cover any
member
>
>  living outside India?  Or those without Indian citizenship?  Or is the
>  matter to be decided on the basis of ethnicity?  In any case the possible
>  ramifications seem quite serious to me.  I would encourage other "foreign"
>  members (whoever that might include) to register your thoughts on the
matter
>
>  with the administration of the BORI.
>
>  Tim Lubin
>  Assistant Professor of Religion (Religions of South Asia)
>  Washington and Lee University
>  Lexington, VA 24450 USA
>
>  (540) 463-8055 (home); -8146 (office); -8498 (fax)
>  Electronic mail: LubinT at WLU.edu
>  Home Page: http://home.wlu.edu/~lubint/tlubin.html
>



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