Bad press for the RSS
To the Editor:
As an alumnus, I found it very encouraging that the University was willing to host Ram Madhav, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh national spokesman, on Monday ("Hindu speaker creates controversy on campus," The Daily Pennsylvanian, 10/05/04). The RSS is the world's largest service organization, and undertakes large service projects in India that many would find daunting. It is also important for the University to understand the RSS's ideology, which helped former Prime Minister of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee forge a historic peace initiative with Pakistan earlier this year.
I, however, found the response of certain Penn professors disgusting, and the DP's coverage of the event one-sided and disappointing.
Those professors at Penn who wished to stop the talk beforehand have shown what they think of the concept of free speech. It was hammered into me during my time at Penn that free speech and the ability to hear all views were fundamental hallmarks of academic freedom. It is abhorrent to me that my alma mater employs professors who think nothing of silencing those who have different political views.
I am disappointed in the DP because it should have done a better job of gathering facts about the RSS before publishing the article. For example, it did not state that the Supreme Court of India absolved the RSS of any role in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. Nor did it note that the RSS was founded well before the Nazi ideology took hold in Germany, making it chronologically impossible for the "founders of the RSS to model themselves on Nazi practices," as was stated in the article.
In fact, the DP article did not provide one single positive fact about the RSS, nor did it research the political motives of those who protested against the speech. As a newspaper at a university, the DP should strive to do better.
Rishi Bhutada
Wharton '04
Biased registration coverage
To the Editor:
First, I want to say I am an active member of the College Republicans, but I am writing this wholly of my own accord, not as a representative of the group.
The DP's liberally biased portrayal of voter registration efforts ("College partisans gear up for final month," DP, 10/06/04) was dismaying. The article abused Republicans and praised Democrats without discussing the obvious truths that your numbers show. Like most campuses, Penn is generally liberal, and there are a greater number of Democrats than Republicans on campus. However, on average, an active Republican was able to register three people to vote, while the average Democrat only registered one. Many Democrats were probably already registered, etc., but I think the ability of the Republicans to get three students each involved in their country's politics, regardless of views, deserves more respect than was given.
On that same line, a better article may have wondered how, despite how much everyone says they care about the election this year, the efforts of all College Republicans and Democrats combined only registered 2,000 people in the entire Penn community of 40,000 people for this nation's election -- and yet, 1,500 people out of only the freshman class voted in the Undergraduate Assembly elections. An article suggesting that, despite big talk, many students may not actually be involved in the election would have had greater journalistic insight and more general interest, without bias.
Commentary is fine on the editorial page, but articles on the front page should remain objective. College Republican efforts deserved more respect, considering the admitted obstacle of the liberal nature of most college campuses. In the end, it is most important that people are voting, not which party is better at canvassing.
Despite this, the DP's coverage has been generally very positive, and I hope that continues through Nov. 2.
Christopher Jacob
Wharton '06
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