GUEST COLUMN: "A True Travesty

and Tulsi Mehta The South Asia Society is an organization that has flourished and grown tremendously within the last three years. Its cultural shows attract over 1,000 people each semester and most of the membership participates in all the activities that are planned. We have always been proud members of the South Asia Society because we believed more than anything that the people in the membership had a lot of integrity, honesty and mutual respect for each other. But on Sunday April 9th, we realized how wrong we were. On this day, the SAS held its annual election to elect the new board. Over 15 people had come forward to run for positions such as president, vice president and treasurer. All of the candidates were generally interested in ensuring the overall success of SAS in the future. However, the elections were a tremendous travesty. This was not an election, this was a mud-slinging circus. When the candidates were asked to go to the front to answer questions about their particular platforms, many members made cruel, insensitive and rude personal attacks on the candidates. Hardly any questions actually focused on the true issues plaguing SAS. In one case, active SAS member and Wharton junior Maalika Rastogi expressed her obvious resentment toward one of the presidential candidates. By mentioning an irrelevant experience she had had with the candidate freshman year, she illustrated that she was more concerned with personal attacks than with electing the most qualified candidate. The candidate she attacked only had thirty seconds to respond t#o this immature abuse. Rastogi's attempt to degrade and humiliate this candidate only displayed her lack of integrity. But that was just the beginning. In another case, a candidate who was running for vice president for outreach courageously stood in front of the entire SAS membership and discussed his vision for outreach next year. But when it was his turn to answer questions about the issues, a group of students in the back of the room attacked his character and posed questions with sheer hostility. This candidate had thoroughly addressed the relevant issues and was no less qualified than any other candidate. Yet, this candidate was also senselessly humiliated and denied the chance to serve an organization that he# truly cares about. When this candidate had left the room, certain members of the audience applauded the verbal assault. Furthermore, a member of the current executive board childishly degraded a fellow executive board member who wished to run again. She used words such as "deceitful and misguided" in her line of questioning. There were at least five other incidents of verbal attack at this election. We find it ironic that the same SAS group that complains constantly about SAS events would fail to listen to candidates' speeches objectively and fail to vote for the most qualified candidates. If the membership does not like a candidate, it does not have to vote for him or her. But degrading candidates in a public forum is unnecessary. We wonder why these students could not simply address their problems individually and in a mature fashion with the candidates in private, rather than gossiping, back-stabbing and airing their dirty laundry in public. Today, this immaturity has cost SAS some great leaders. Tomorrow, potential candidates could be discouraged from running. We urge these students to grow up, or perhaps even visit University Counseling Service. Respect is something that must be earned. How can we expect others to respect us when we cannot respect each other? If these people care more about their personal gripes than the future of their organization, then they do not deserve to be members. Human respect is something that must be preserved no matter the time or place.