Dear Sanjay Subrahmanyam,
As readers and admirers of your work, we are saddened by your decision to accept the Dan David prize for history this year, along with Kenneth Pomeranz. By accepting this prize, endowed by Dan David Foundation and hosted by Tel Aviv University, you would be lending your name and academic distinction to institutions deeply invested in advancing Israel’s settler-colonial, occupation and apartheid project. You would strengthen the Israeli project to build a smokescreen to whitewash its crimes.
On the day of the announcement of your prize, Israel’s forces killed two teenagers in Gaza who were participating in the now nearly a year-long Great Return March. Over 200 Palestinians have been killed just over the last year as they demand their UN-sanctioned right to return to their villages and towns across the militarized separation barrier that besieges Gaza. 71 years of Israel’s regime of racism, ethnic cleansing and war crimes has intensified over the last years with regular home demolitions, expulsions and the apartheid wall. Last year, the Knesset passed a the Jewish nation-state law, conveying constitutional status to Israel’s apartheid regime. The racist, supremacist nature of Israel is what is bringing India’s ruling regime closer to it, as the latter too believes in the exclusivist, anti-minority ideology of Hindutva. We stand opposed to it, in defence of democracy and secularism, just as we stand in support of the Palestinian struggle for freedom. Our solidarity to Palestine is part of our postcolonial history, an article of faith we abide by.
The overwhelming majority of the Palestinian academia and civil society has called for boycott of Israel and its institutions until it respects Palestinian human rights and complies with international law. Growing number of academics, academic councils and students’ unions are endorsing the call for academic boycott of Israel. One of the three Nobel Prize winners for Chemistry last year, Professor George P Smith, who also supports the call, stated:
People of conscience all over the world have an obligation to pay attention to abuses of human rights, like [Israel’s] 71-year regime of dispossession and subjugation. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, that 170 Palestinian civil society organizations called for in 2005, calls for boycotting Israel until it meets some ordinary requirements, some minimal requirements, of moral behavior on the part of nations.
Your brilliant scholarship on early modern world and your writings beyond have held that flame of conscience within them. It would be an injustice to your own work and your contributions if you were to accept this award and, in the process, lend legitimacy to Israeli apartheid institutions.
Professor Subrahmanyam, we urge you to respect the Palestinian picket line. There is no clearer way today to show one’s solidarity to their inspiring struggle. We hope you will reconsider your decision to accept the Dan David prize.
Endorsed By:
- Nivedita Menon, Jawaharlal Nehru University
- Leki Thungon, Lady Sri Ram College for Women, Delhi University
- Ritu Menon, Women Unlimited
- Saba Dave Kohli, United Against Hate
- Lakshmi Subramanian, Jamia Millia Islamia
- Bindu Doddahatti, Advocate, Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore
- Maimoona Mollah, President, All India Democratic Women’s Association, Delhi State Committee
- T Jayaraman, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai
- Nayantara Sahgal, Author
- Achin Vanaik, Academic
- Nandini Sundar, Sociology, Delhi University
- Shiva Shankar, Chennai Mathematical Institute
- Indira Chandrasekhar, Tulika Books
- S Anand, Navayana
- Ranjan Solomon, BADAYL
- Papori Bora, Jawaharlal Nehru University
- Sudhanva Deshpande, LeftWord Books
- Moloyashree Hashmi, Jana Natya Manch
- Rajeev Dhavan, Senior Advocate
- YC Subrahmanya, Bangalore
- Ayesha Kidwai, Jawaharlal Nehru University
- Vivan Sundaram, Artist, Delhi
- Geeta Kapur, Art Critic, Delhi
- Sohail Hashmi, Writer and Filmmaker
- Chirag Dhara, Physicist and Climatologist
- Rajni Palriwala, Sociology, Delhi University
- Suhail Shafi, Activist
- Amit Sengupta Executive Editor (Knowledge Resource Centre, Delhi)
- Ram Puniyani, Center for Study of Society and Secularism
- Bibin Thomas, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad
- Orijit Sen, Artist
- Pushpamala N, Artist, Bangalore
- Shivangi Mariam Sharma, Student of Literature and Linguistics, Delhi
- Marcy Newman, Author: The Politics of Teaching Palestine to Americans
- Seema Mustafa, Senior Journalist
- Githa Hariharan, Author and Founder Editor, Indian Writers Forum
- Prabir Purkayastha, Founding Editor, Newsclick.in
- Sukumar Muralidharan, Senior Journalist
- Asad Zaidi, Writer and Publisher, Three Essays Collective
- Dr. Mohan Rao, Former Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University
- Nuzhat Kazmi, Professor, Jamia Millia Islamia
- Ambika Nair, Lawyer and Journalist
- Vincent Manoharan, National Dalit Christian Watch
- Manjulie Vaiphei, Gender and Social Justice Desk, Students Christian Movement of India
- Dakerlin Mukhim, Faith Formation and Praxis Desk, Students Christian Movement of India
- Uma Chakravarti, Feminist Historian
- Inbaraj Jeyakumar, Students Christian Movement of India
- Fr. Devasagaya Raj, CBCI Office for Dalits and Backward Classes
- Nida Arif, Research Scholar, Delhi University
- Subhankar Chakraborty, Ecologist and Activist, Bangalore
- Dunu Roy, Hazards Centre, Delhi
- Pamela Philipose, Senior Journalist
- V. Geetha, Writer and Activist
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