Dear Dr. Chandra Mohan,
This refers to your recent email regarding the Way Forward for IACS. I understand and appreciate your commitment to find a way forward for IACS and assure you of our commitment to the cause of serving the academic community of Canadianists. Be assured that we are prepared to forgo the legal and technical formalities if this can bring back the Association to the levels that it has achieved in the past.
However, your claim that there is a discernible mood of indifference by some members is not tenable. You may know that the new EC has changed its focus from the major universities and metropolitan centres with established Canadianists to outreach programmes for broadening the reach of IACS to include newer universities with diverse student population and new researchers during the Silver Jubilee year of its activities. This can be seen from the following activities recently conducted in small towns for revival and rejuvenation of IACS.
• 24th Annual Conference at H. M. Patel Institute of English Training and Research at Vallabh Vidyanagar, Anand was held on April 10-11, 2010, despite your efforts to scuttle it by going to court to bring a stay order that was not granted. For a full report please visit our bog at: http://www.iacsvadodara.blogspot.com
• First National Symposium cum Seminar on Canadian Studies on “Ecology, Culture, Ethnicity, and Literature” was organised by Indian Association for Canadian Studies in collaboration with Government Arts College Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu on December 18-20, 2010. Besides lectures by seven established Canadianists, 58 young scholars and teachers made presentations during the Seminar. Consequently, Government Arts College (established in 1875) which is an Autonomous Post Graduate college has decided to introduce a Masters course in Canadian Studies from the next academic session and the proceedings of the Seminar are under printing. You may see this event partly at our website.
• Second National Symposium cum Seminar on Canadian Studies on “Indo-Canadian Concerns: Towards building up a cultural bridge” organised by Indian Association for Canadian Studies in collaboration with Janardan Rai Nagar Rajasthan Vidyapeeth University, Udaipur on March 27-28, 2011. Despite phone calls to cancel this event by some persons in Delhi, the event was successfully organized in which 42 papers were read by young scholars/teachers. Six veteran Canadianists delivered lectures on Canadian Studies in the Symposium. This university has decided to offer a full paper in Canadian Studies at Master’s level from next academic year. A full report of this event will soon be available on our website.
• A new and vibrant website and a Google group (run by Alice Anugraham) have been created. Some of the speeches delivered at our conferences and Symposia are recoded on our new website at: http://www.iacs-ind.com
• The first issue of our electronic version at our of Indian Journal of Canadian Studies has two essays uploaded at our website and a few others are in the process. As soon as this electronic version is done, we will print it and distribute it to all the members of the Association.
• The electronic version of our Newsletter is under preparation and will be sent to the members by the end of this month. The printed version will be out in May 2011.
I am sure that all the above listed activities will convince you about the way IACS is working at present to revive the association after a lapse of four years. This has happened despite the following recent subversive activities:
• Dr. V. D. Kaushik under RTI approached Indian Bank and the Reserve Bank of India to stop operation of the IACS accounts. The Bank suspended the operation of the account for over two months and allowed us to operate again after obtaining legal opinion at the expense of IACS. Please see the full report at our blog at: http://www.iacsvadodara.blogspot.com
• Dr. D. K. Pabby and some others made phone calls to the organizers of Udaipur Symposium in February/ March 2011 to cancel the event that delayed the decision making, though the event was conducted successfully.
• We had to reply to Dr. Pabby’s letter asking him and others to account for the following financial misappropriations.
a) Rs. 30,000 fraud done by the organisers of Canadian Studies Workshop held in Delhi;
b) Rs. 4,00,000 due to accounting of Life Memberships of about 200 members and
c) payment of litigation cost of approximately Rs. 2,00,000 to IACS on account of the Court Order of 29 August 2009.
This does not indicate that you are still prepared to lead the positive way forward.
• You have not honoured the agreements that we signed in the presence of the Canadian authorities. In fact, you have gone to collect funds from individuals for fighting legal battles even after the Final Order of the Joint Charity Commissioner and non grant of stay order by the court.
• Without verifying the facts about the operation of the Bank accounts in Baroda, a grapevine campaign at character assassination was rampant till I replied to Dr. Pabby’s letter alleging a fraud
These subversive activities despite the claims to your commitment to IACS stand to prove that there exits a big gap in what you practice and what you preach.
In spite of all the above subversive activities, non fulfilment of agreements, and the big gap in what you practice and what you preach, I am prepared to take your advice on the positive way forward seriously.
I would therefore urge you to take the first step of following the universal democratic traditions and practices of handing over the charge of all the records, documents, Bank accounts, assets and other information vital to the smooth functioning of the Association to the new EC by the outgoing EC.
As soon as this first step of following the democratic principles of handing over the charge is taken, I may assure you that we shall call a meeting of the General Body inviting all the members of IACS and the Canadian authorities at the earliest.
I am happy to know that you have come to Florida to participate in a Conference. I wish you well. I may inform you that these days I am in California where I have come to teach a course on 1945 Partition of India at University of California at Berkley.
With regards, Om Juneja
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Dr. Chandra Mohan’s Email dated 8 April 2011 to Om Juneja
On 8 April 2011 04:59, chandra mohan
Dear Prof Juneja,
Hope you are fine. Sending this mail from Florida where I am invited to a conference. With a sense of concern for a body (IACS) we have nurtured, the suggestion is to pave a positive way forward. I am also endorsing a copy to the concerned members, known friends and officials from CHC and DFAIT, and some respected senior colleagues. I would request you to forward it to your worthy EC members whose ids are not known to me and not included at the moment.
The Positive Way Forward:
Both, time and life are short. There seems to be emerging a discernible mood of acute indifference towards IACS from most of the members and concerned persons and officials. Its vibrancy is getting eclipsed.This becomes an extraordinary and challenging situation. God has given a chance to do something positive after the elections. As a colleague, past Secretary and past President, IACS; I would like to suggest that in order to have some positive result, you may go for a popular move, rather than counting legal or technical, formal or informal approaches, in the wider interest of the smooth functioning of IACS. I had sent you a request mail last July, and on similar lines the past EC had sent a letter to you in nice words, conveying that you please agree to go for a joint-G.B. meeting. This suggestion was made to make things more viable under the prevailing situation. That will help both the parties to come together. It will also be according to the directions of the Jt. Charity Commissioner. This step may help to hand over the charge. You will be able to have a meaningful agenda to go ahead to do pending things as outlined in the Open Letter of Jean Labrie. It will be befitting to invite Mr. Jean Labrie to this GB meeting. By doing so, you will be achieving the desired result that will add something concrete & positive to include in the IACS report for the ICCS meeting in May 2011. Our senior colleagues whom both of us respect, are also of the same opinion. Once again, I am conveying the positive way forward which carries practical and sagacious aspect in going ahead and make IACS a forward looking body and to get a good name for its functioning. You are welcome for any clarification or suggestion for further action which I will convey to the concerned colleagues. Most of us are positive minded. I would like to end with an appropriate couplet,
Sahi, galat ke beech men chunana kya barhi baat hai
Do sahi raston ke beech men munasib chunna hi barhi baat hai
(What is so great to choose between a right or wrong path.
What is really great is to choose a more conducive and positive path between the two right ones)
With best regards
Chandra Mohan
