Talk:Rohit Chopra

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By Rutvi Dattani


Rohit Chopra is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication, College of Arts and Sciences, Santa Clara University[1] [2] as of August 2022. He is also the co-founder and co-host of the India Explained podcast. He is also a part of the South Asia Scholarly Activist Collective. As per his bio, Rohit Chopra’s research and teaching focus on global media and cultural identity, new media technologies, and post colonial media.

In 2021, he endorsed the "Dismantling Global Hindutva" conference and made the following statement despite the fact that he has not done any analysis on Indian government policy towards women.

"the current government of India [in 2021] has instituted discriminatory policies including beef bans, restrictions on religious conversion and interfaith weddings, and the introduction of religious discrimination into India’s citizenship laws. The result has been a horrifying rise in religious and caste-based violence, including hate crimes, lynchings, and rapes directed against Muslims, non-conforming Dalits, Sikhs, Christians, adivasis and other dissident Hindus. Women of these communities are especially targeted. Meanwhile, the government has used every tool of harassment and intimidation to muzzle dissent. Dozens of student activists and human rights defenders are currently languishing in jail indefinitely without due process under repressive anti-terrorism laws."[3]

On November 5, 2017, he signed the letter submitted by the South Asia Faculty Group (SAFG) to the California State Board of Education[4] where he:

  • Misrepresented scholarship stating "Mythological terms substitute for historical ones for example the 'Indus Valley Civilization' (a fact-based geographic term) appears to be replaced with a religiously-motivated and ideologically charged term 'Indus-Saraswati/Sarasvati Civilization'. The Saraswati is a mythical river"[5][6][7]
  • Implied that Christians and Muslims existed in Ancient India, prior to the founding of these religions ​

In 2016, he signed a letter endorsing a letter submitted by the South Asia Faculty Group[8][9] where it addressed the State Board of Education, California Department of Education, dated May 17, 2016. In this letter they requested removing the word India from textbooks. In addition, they falsely[10] stated:

  1. "There is no established connection between Hinduism and the Indus Civilization."
  2. "It is inappropriate to remove mention of the connection of caste to Hinduism."


Publications related to India[edit]

  1. Chopra, Rohit. The Virtual Hindu Rashtra: Saffron Nationalism and New Media. Harper Collins, 2019.
    In this book, Rohit criticizes the democratically elected Indian Government for enforcing laws related to "hate speech", yet he calls for technology companies, operating outside India, to decide for Indian citizenry the definition of "permissible speech," in a way that is independent of Indian laws. He accuses the Hindu Right of propagating religion based and caste based violence in Indian cyberspace using biased and selective anecdotes. He provides no explanation regarding the criteria of sample selection or any quantitative substantiation for his arguments. [11]
  2. Chopra, Rohit. The Gita for a Global World: Ethical Action in an Age of Flux. Context, 2021.
  3. Chopra, Rohit. Technology and Nationalism in India: Cultural Negotiations from Colonialism to Cyberspace. Cambria Press, 2008.

References[edit]

  1. ↑ Rohit Chopra's page on Santa Clara University accessed on August 2, 2022
  2. ↑ Rohit Chopra's Bio accessed on August 2, 2022
  3. ↑ "Letter of Support", Dismantling Global Hindutva Conference website, accessed August 7, 2022
  4. ↑ 2017 South Asia Faculty Group (SAFG) Letter to the California State Board of Education
  5. ↑ Chakrabarti, Dilip, and Sukhdev Saini. The Problem of the Sarasvati River and Notes on the Archaeological Geography of Haryana and Indian Punjab. Aryan Books International, 2009.
  6. ↑ Danino, Michel. The Lost River: On the Trail of the Sarasvati. Penguin Books, 2010.
  7. ↑ McIntosh, Jane R. A Peaceful Realm: The Rise and Fall of the Indus Civilization. Westview Press, 2002, p. 24. ​where she stated "Suddenly it became apparent that the “Indus” Civilization was a misnomer—although the Indus had played a major role in the development of the civilization, the “lost Saraswati” River, judging by the density of settlement along its banks, had contributed an equal or greater part to its prosperity. Many people today refer to this early state as the “Indus-Saraswati Civilization” and continuing references to the “Indus Civilization” should be an abbreviation in which the “Saraswati” is implied. There are some fifty sites known along the Indus whereas the Saraswati has almost 1,000. This is misleading figure because erosion and alluviation has between them destroyed or deeply buried the greater part of settlements in the Indus Valley itself, but there can be no doubt that the Saraswati system did yield a high proportion of the Indus people’s agricultural produce"
  8. ↑ 5-17 Prof. S. Shankar et al support letter
  9. ↑ 5-17 Kamala Visweswaran South Asian Faculty Group
  10. ↑ Gupta, S. P. 'The Dawn of Civilization.' In History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization: Volume I: Part 1, edited by G. C. Pandey and D. P. Chattopadhyaya. New Delhi: Centre for Studies in Civilizations, 1999.
  11. ↑ Chopra. R (2019) The Virtual Hindu Rashtra: Saffron Nationalism and New Media, Google Books, accessed August 7, 2022
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