Harvard under fire for hosting Pakistan conference after Pahalgam terror attack

TOI correspondent from Washington: Harvard University's South Asia Institute, bankrolled by Indian billionaire Laxmi Mittal , distanced itself from a "Pakistan conference" it platformed on Sunday after a backlash from some Indian students, even as Pakistan, embarrassed over having to use an Indian-funded facility, vowed to regain its diminishing footprint in US academia .

Controversy over the one-day conference erupted after two Indian students, Surabhi Tomar and Abhishek Chaudhuri, in a letter to the university management, urged Harvard to "ensure its campus does not become a platform for whitewashing state-enabled religious terrorism " in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terrorist attack that killed 26 people.

“Welcoming representatives of a government that enables or justifies terrorism risks Harvard being complicit. The United States must not host representatives of a state that protects and promotes organisations targeting civilians based on faith,” the students said in a separate letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Pakistan's finance minister Muhammed Aurangazeb and its ambassador to US Rizwan Shaeed Sheikh were among the delegates to the conference.

Among other demands, the students urged the Harvard management to issue a public statement condemning the Pahalgam attack and provide emotional and institutional support to affected students, seeking, "clarity, courage, and compassion for Hindu and Indian students grieving the targeted killing of members of their faith."

An administrator at the South Asia Institute told ToI that the conference was organized by Pakistani students and the institute did not host it beyond providing "some support."

However, the Institute's executive director, Hitesh Hathi, took part in a discussion with Pakistani historian Ayesha Jalal on "The Enlightened Muslim: Examining the intersection of religion, modernity, and state formation in Pakistan." The Institute later scrubbed the conference and the panel discussion from its website, a link showing the message, " The page you requested could not be found."

While some Indian students expressed anger at Harvard and SAI platforming the event, others mocked the Pakistani effort, ridiculing a country that is so broke that it required an Indian billionaire to platform its conference. Although organized by Pakistani students at Harvard, the conference, according to some attendees, was also ostensibly aimed at rejuvenating the country's diminishing footprint in US academia.

Among others, Hamid Mir, a prominent Pakistani journalist who was a delegate at the conference and also reported on it, repeatedly invoked the Indian clout in US academia, leading Pakistan's ambassador to the US to pledge that Islamabad would work to restore several Pakistan chairs that were defunct, including the Quaid e Azam chair at Columbia University.

According to Open Doors, which tracks foreign student inflow into the US. Pakistan currently has 10,988 students enrolled in American higher education institutions, compared to 331,602 students from India, the highest among all countries, followed by China at 277,398. Even Bangladesh (17,099) and Nepal (16,742) have more students in the US than Pakistan, whose international reputation has suffered on account of hosting terrorist groups and purported use terrorism as a policy instrument.