It is all well and good that the ICCR is setting up more centres for Indian studies. But some clarifications are needed. First, the Indian scholars chosen by ICCR seem to be expected to follow the Government of India party line. I base this on a recent incident at the University of Toronto. An ICCR visiting scholar was chairing a talk about Kashmir by a Kashmiri journalist from Srinagar in early April. Since this kind of seminar is open to the public, several Kashmiri pandits, i.e. de facto Hindutva supporters attended and began to shout down the speaker. The chair calmly tried to tell them that this was an academic, not political  event, but to no avail. The discussion had to be cut short due to these interruptions. Furthermore, the chair received a strongly worded rebuke from the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Delhi, accusing her of taking sides against India, which was certainly not the case. The chair of the Asian Centre at UofT protested, but to my knowledge the ministry issued no apology neither to the chair, nor the speaker, nor the UofT.

Furthermore, the visiting ICCR scholar taught one course at our university during the winter term. The course was duly remunerated in accordance with Canadian labour laws. However, the ICCR demanded - and obtained!  - that all this legal remuneration from UofT be returned to them. Only then did they pay  out the foreign allowance to the scholar. In other words, the University of Toronto subsidized ICCR to a tune of some $8000 + a paid for rental apartment (rather expensive in Toronto). The ICCR merely shelled out only a few hundred dollars + transport to the visiting scholar. The whole affair made India look cheap and mean. So much for the rising and shining India!

Stella Sandahl

Department of East Asian Studies

University of Toronto