DEK: The Deepak and Neera Raj Center on Indian Economic Policy functions as a propaganda arm for the Hindu nationalist ruling party of India, students said last week. 

By: Maansi Shah

Concern is growing at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) about hefty donations to the school from right-wing donors with close ties to the ruling Hindu nationalist party of India. The government of Narendra Modi has increasingly squelched freedom of expression, prosecuted its political opponents, and passed anti-Muslim laws. In addition to this, the Raj Center at SIPA is actively being used to legitimize the Modi administration and make its policies more palatable globally, students say.

On February 22, a collective of South Asian students at SIPA issued a statement condemning the recent arrests of students, journalists, and farmers in India, whose protests against the dismantling of state protections for agriculture are entering their fifth month. In response to the farmer-led movement against the corporate monopolization of agriculture, Modi’s government has cracked down on civil liberties, shutting down water, electricity and internet services and arresting hundreds of political dissidents. 

The students’ letter urges the SIPA administration to “request the Deepak and Neera Raj Center to cut ties with current Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) party members.” The statement noted that events hosted by the Center on campus routinely exclude critics of the current Indian government. Students assert that the Raj Center has several urgently troubling ties to the BJP, and is being used as a platform to promote Modi’s policies and sanitize ongoing human rights violations in India. 

The Deepak Raj Center on Indian Economic Policy was established in September 2015 with a $5 million endowment grant, on the eve of the Prime Minister’s second visit to the United States. The Center serves as a cautionary tale for how money can wield influence over universities. 

Housed at the School for International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, the Center aims to “provide research and expertise necessary to inform policy decisions, deliver increased prosperity, and define India’s future role in the global economy.”

However, in practice, the Center primarily publishes fawning reviews of Modi’s economic policies. A cursory glance through the Center’s “Op-Eds” page reveals that 14 of 23 articles posted are adulatory pieces about BJP policies, rebuttals of criticism levied at the Prime Minister, or denunciations of India’s main opposition party, the Congress Party.

Deepak and Neera Raj have consistently donated to SIPA since 2015, when the Center was established. According to SIPA’s 2018/2019 Annual Statement, Deepak and Neera Raj donated over a million dollars to the University that fiscal year -- a gift that made them one of the five top donors. Deepak Raj, a former executive at Merrill Lynch, also sits on Dean Merit Janow’s campaign advisory council. 

The Raj Center’s directors, economists Arvind Panagriya and Jagdish Bhagwati, have both resuscitated their careers by jumping on the BJP bandwagon and advising the government. 

Panagariya has said that he feels he has much more influence over the BJP government than the previous administration, which “simply wasn’t interested in reforms. So nothing I wrote actually got done.” He was invited in 2015 by the Modi government to serve as the first vice-chairman of NITI-Aayog, a state-run think tank. It’s unsurprising then that Panagariya has found the BJP to be a convenient ally in his vision for unregulated markets and unfettered capitalism in India. Since his return to Columbia, he privately sends advice to high-level Ministers in the administration and regularly meets with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India. 

It’s not just Panagariya who has ties to the BJP. Uday Kotak, another key funder of the Raj Center, was a special invitee at Modi’s swearing-in ceremony in both 2014 and 2019. The Center itself was inaugurated by Arun Jaitley, a BJP official who served as the Minister of Finance to the Modi government. 

Winning the support of academics in the global Indian diaspora like Panagariya and Bhagwati has been a key PR victory in the BJP’s efforts to cleanse Narendra Modi’s image. These efforts have been bolstered by millions of dollars in donations by Hindu nationalist organizations to multiple universities, including and beyond Columbia.

The Dharma Civilization Foundation alone has funded research positions at the University of Southern California, UC Berkeley and Claremont Lincoln University. The DCF is led by senior members and founders of the American branch of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ethnofascist paramilitary group that birthed the BJP. The Foundation made headlines when student and faculty opposition caused UC Irvine to reject a $6-million endowment from the organization.

The Infinity Foundation set up by Rajiv Malhotra. An online ideologue and ardent proponent of Hindu nationalism, Malhotra gave $1.9 million to academic departments across the world from 2001-2013, including Harvard University, Rutgers University, the University of Texas at Austin and Columbia University, through his Foundation. The grants funded research and visiting positions for scholars focusing on religious studies and South Asia. 

At Columbia, a 2010 grant established a three-year research program on the Indian economy led by Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya, whom many credit with popularizing the “Gujarat Model”, a term that refers to the economic policies and social polarization that came to characterize Modi’s rule in Gujarat. That temporary program has since transformed into the Deepak Raj Center.

Over the last several years, Bhagwati and Panagariya have used the center as a platform to promote pro-BJP ideas. 

In October 2019, the Raj Center, alongside the Columbia Law School and SIPA’s South Asia Association, invited Nirmala Sitharaman to speak. Sitharaman, a former spokesperson for the BJP and Minister of Defense to the Modi administration, is currently India’s Minister of Finance. Ira Regmi, then a graduate student at SIPA, stumbled on the event just as it was starting. 

The event was not well-publicized, says Regmi. “It’s a deliberate attempt to create an echo chamber… they don’t advertise their events so they can curate the list of attendees.”

After Sitharaman’s comments, Regmi stood up. She said that she had a question about Kashmir. Before she had the chance to speak, the moderator, Arvind Panagariya, interrupted,  “We will not entertain political questions,” he said. 

Only after repeated reassurances that she would ask an economic question was Regmi allowed to speak. She proceeded to question Sitharaman about the impact of the Indian government’s imposition of an already several months-long internet and media blackout on Kashmir’s economy, estimated to have caused a loss of over $5.3 billion. Just last month, the Indian occupied region of Kashmir regained full internet services after nearly two years of shutdowns.

Sitharaman retorted that this was, in fact, a political question, and blamed ‘stone-pelters’ in the state for the economic losses. Upon the minister’s answer, the audience broke into applause.

“It was humiliating… I don’t think I’ve ever felt more uncomfortable,” says Regmi. 

This was not an isolated event. SIPA’s South Asia Association (SAA) and the directors of the Raj Center have regularly invited BJP officials to speak at their events, and students told me that event moderators regularly shut down dissenting opinions. 

Students assert that the South Asia Association board has refused to sign any petitions condemning Hindu nationalism, mob lynchings of Dalits and Muslims, or violence against students protests in India. 

“South Asia Association board members have said that because of their association with the Raj Center and the need to invite Indian officials for their panels, they will not take a stance on social and political issues in India,” says Benson Neethipudi, a second-year student at SIPA.

The SIPA administration and the South Asia Association have not yet responded to requests for comment, and Bhagwati declined to comment on the record. However, faculty at SIPA said they are worried about how the University can be used by autocratic governments seeking to bolster their reputation.

“The danger is when these organizations start using the Columbia name and backdrop to legitimize their ideas,” said Anya Schiffrin, a lecturer at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs.

While these events are not well publicised on the Columbia campus, they receive wide coverage in Indian media. “The narrative that is created is that Columbia, a leading research University in the world, supports RSS-BJP’s Hindutva project and policies,” says Neethipudi.

With contributions from Benson Neethipudi.