Modi Effect: Wharton Loses Main Sponsor Gautam Adani

"Gujarat has some of the worst human development index report. We need to unpack this rhetoric what development is. We will continue to do that," he added.

The anti-Modi petition said that it was incomprehensible to the signatories that this was the man who the Wharton India Economic Forum wished to celebrate as an exemplar of economic and social development.

"We find it astonishing that any academic and student body at the University of Pennsylvania can endorse ideas about economic development that are based on the systematic oppression of minority populations, whether in India or elsewhere," the petition said.

"Mr Modi still does not have a U.S. visa to enter the U.S., but Wharton plans to present him on Skype to the audience. Recently there have been efforts to whitewash Modi's grim record and to grant him international respectability. Wharton's invitation lends itself to doing just that," the signatories of the petition argued.

"We urge the Wharton India Economic Forum to revoke their invitation to Narendra Modi. If it does not do not do so, we pledge to protest against his presence – virtual, as it will be – given that he remains ineligible for a U.S. visa, in a variety of ways, including at the meeting of the Forum," the signatories said in the petition.

"We will also do all that we can to continue to educate our community about the incalculable and continuing harm done by Modi's brand of politics to the secular values enshrined in India's constitution," they said.

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