On Monday, the students of the Centre of Ecological Sciences at Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru received an email about a talk that was going to be organised on March 11. Since the departments at IISc organise external lectures and talks on an almost weekly basis, the Islamophobic, condescending and patriarchal nature of the talk went unnoticed by most students initially as they did not go through the email.
However, on Tuesday, the abstract of the talk came to notice when some people shared screenshots on Twitter; and it understandably caused a lot of outrage. Thanks to objections online and from the students of the department as well, the talk was cancelled just a day before it was supposed to be held.
The talk was to be given by KN Ganeshaiah, an agricultural scientist and a retired professor from the University of Agricultural Sciences in Bengaluru. According to the abstract shared on the email with the students, the lecture was about "Polygamy, sexual selection and terrorism". Without naming any community but not leaving much doubt as to which it was, the talk was apparently about how polygamy by men in some societies causes poorer men these societies to be sexually deprived, making them more prone to take to “terrorist activities”.
Here is the abstract as sent to the students:
“Theory of sexual selection argues that asymmetry between males and females in their investment in to the offspring results in the promiscuity of males. This instinctive nature of males to be promiscuous, seems to have been socially (and even religiously) granted and packaged in the form of `polygamy’, at least in certain human societies. Unfortunately, in societies where such polygamy is intense, a large set of males from socially and economically lower strata is deprived of mates creating a huge bank of `bare branches’. Besides sexual selection, female foeticide, driven by social preference for males in certain societies, has also resulted in mate-deprived `bare branches’ . Such men are obviously deprived of an important physiological need which in turn could lead to psychological trauma rendering them to be more vulnerable to take up crime, and indulge in violence and militancy. Therefore, these `mate deprived men’ are likely to become an easy prey for the religious fundamental organizations who would be scouting to recruit ground fighters to attain their narrow religious ends. In other words, the `bare branches’ of certain societies are likely to provide the ground force for terrorism. Therefore I argue that, polygamy and female foeticide could be strong contributors to the ground army required for terrorist activities. I illustrate this with a strong spatial and anthropological association between polygamy, female foeticide and terrorism.”
The abstract is sexist and misogynistic, Islamophobic, and classist. It speaks of women as mere objects of sexual gratification for men, and claims poor men become terrorists because they are ‘sexually deprived’.
The students at IISc approached the internal committee of the department that had scheduled the talk on Tuesday. Soon, it was cancelled.
Here’s what some people said about the now cancelled talk online.
Jokers of academia, which is choked with hindu oppressor-caste shit ppl, are going to host a highly imaginative talk that is utterly and intensely communal, sexist, casteist, classist, claiming its evolutionary biology. Because “healthy debate”. These sickos should all be in jail pic.twitter.com/OLrNeByzjJ
— tea kadai saathukudi juice (@zideresed) March 10, 2020
This is terrible.. Withdraw the talk! @CES_IISc https://t.co/hAaNvK94ye
— Krishnapriya Tamma (@priya_tamma) March 10, 2020
This talk being scheduled at all is a disgrace to the department. Please cancel this talk, @CES_IISc. https://t.co/pZAzh8M9s9
— pranav minasandra (@PMinasandra) March 10, 2020
What in Indian incel hell is this crap?? Y’all created a whole culture of arranged marriages since you can’t get laid & still blame women for literally everything. Also your selectively biased & correlative data doesn’t mean shit. Do better @iiscbangalore @CES_IISc https://t.co/Fv67goerb5
— Feminist & done with your shit (@FeministHellcat) March 10, 2020
While this event itself was organised by an internal committee of the Centre of Ecological Sciences, IISc has landed itself in controversy in the past over unscientific events. Last year, the institute saw students protest against an event by spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravishankar called ‘Excellence Through Inner Peace’ being organised under the IISc banner. Earlier in 2017, the alumni association of IISc had planned an astrology workshop which also raised many eyebrows. This too was cancelled after many scientists, some IISc faculty, and other alumni objected to it.