Indian journalist will speak at SFU and UBC event but not as part of Harjit Kaur Sidhu Memorial Program

UBC is insisting that it has not censored a high-profile Indian journalist who was scheduled to speak at the annual Harjit Kaur Sidhu Memorial Program.

After the event featuring Caravan magazine political editor Hartosh Singh Bal was cancelled, Straight contributor Gurpreet Singh and former B.C. premier Ujjal Dosanjh blamed this on complaints from Sikh activists.

In an open letter to UBC president Santa Ono, Dosanjh said that he's recycled his UBC degree because of what he perceived to be an attack on academic freedom.

The university's associate dean of equity, strategy and innovation in the faculty of arts, Janice Stewart, recently told the Straight through a university spokesperson that the cancellation was due to "a variety reasons and primarily due to the pandemic".

"In previous years, this event has included live performances, as well as an award ceremony for student winners of an annual Punjabi-language essay contest," Stewart stated. "The event committee found it challenging to successfully adapt these aspects of the event to a digital format.

"Some students who had planned to participate also raised concerns about one of the invited speakers, and expressed their preference to withdraw from the event," Stewart continued. "The decision to postpone this event does not reflect any interest in censorship by the University.

"UBC is committed to academic freedom and it is enshrined in University Senate policy. The speaker has been rescheduled for an event co-hosted by SFU, UBC and the South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy."

Bal will appear in a webinar on April 26 from 7 to 8 p.m., but not as part of the Harjit Kaur Sidhu Memorial Program. According to a notice on the SFU website, it was organized by SFU's Institute for the Humanities and is cosponsored by the UBC Centre for India and South Asia Research and SANSAD.

Bal has formerly worked for Indian Express, Tehelka, and Mail Today and is the author of Waters Close Over Us and A Journey Along the Narmada, as well as coauthor of A Certain Ambiguity: A Mathematical Novel.

The moderator will be Gurpreet Singh.

In a separate open letter to Ono and faculty of arts dean Gage Averill, the UBC Sikh Students' Association blasted the university's decision to issue an invitation to Bal.

This was in light of his previous observations about his uncle, former Punjab police chief K.P.S. Gill, whose force engaged in extrajudicial killings during the Sikh insurgency of the 1980s and 1990s.

"We strongly believe that inviting Hartosh Singh Bal and allowing him the platform, at UBC, to speak on a topic like the Farmers’ Protests is not right," the UBC SSA stated. "This would be extremely disparaging to UBC’s Sikh student community, many of whose families were victims of KPS Gill’s reign of carnage, and who themselves face intergenerational trauma." 

Gurpreet Singh, on the other hand, pointed out in a commentary on Straight.com that Bal has extensively covered the demonstrations by farmers in India and has been a vocal critic of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's policies.

"Bal has been writing consistently against what happened to the Sikhs in 1984 and openly blames majoritarian politics for the situation the minority community was pushed into," Singh declared. "He sees many parallels between policies of the present prime minister, Narendra Modi, and those of Indira Gandhi and pulls no punches while criticizing any of them."

Moreover, Singh stated that Bal was "only trying to contextualize Gill and his actions and he had every right to do so".

"One can always disagree with Bal on many things and debate with him, but how wise it is to shun him by simply glossing over his entire work?"