Erosion of academic freedom

 

 

A Teachers’ Day missive

Erosion of academic freedom

 The birth day of Dr.S.Radhakrishnan is celebrated as the Teachers’ Day. He was one of the great teachers and most distinguished scholars of comparative religion and philosophy. He studied philosophy by chance, as he wanted to study law, a popular subject those days, but as he could not secure admission to law, he ended up studying philosophy. An accidental Philosopher, he began his teaching career as Asst. Professor of Philosophy at Madras Presidency College.  His lectures became so popular that the students of other city colleges used to flock to his class rooms to listen to him.

In 1918, Radhakrishnan was selected as Professor of Philosophy by the University of Mysore  and in 1921 when he was leaving Mysore to occupy the King George V Chair of Mental and Moral Science at the University of Calcutta, the entire city came to halt to bid him adieu. He never studied abroad, but was the first Asian to be named as Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics at the prestigious University of Oxford in 1936. As an academic and philosopher, he was one of the most recognized and influential Indian thinkers in academic circles. His extensive knowledge of the Western philosophical and literary traditions had earned him the reputation of being a bridge-builder between India and the West, acknowledged as a representative of Hinduism to the West. His writings and numerous published works have been influential in shaping the West’s understanding of Hinduism, India, and the East. When he became the President of India, Bertrand Russell called him the Philosopher-King in the true sense of Plato.

He believed "teachers should be the best minds in the country." As one of the finest teachers the modern world has ever come across, he used to say: "the values of human life must come from two sources: Parents and Teachers. They are the makers of an evolved society.” It is the parents first and then teachers who mould the character of children and imbibe in them the right values. If the parents adapt non-corrupt pattern of behavior, children grow up as honest and incorrupt adults walking on the path of righteousness. And if a teacher is kind and humane, he becomes a good teacher. As Russell believed: “No man can be a good teacher unless he has feelings of warm affection towards his pupils and a genuine desire to impart to them what he himself believes to be of value.”  In the class room, the teacher’s personality is dominant, with all his learning and knowledge, experience and wisdom coming into play.  A teacher who habitually does what is ethically right rather than what is expedient gains respect and admiration. Respect is earned, not commanded.

The educational institutions of higher learning in India have lost academic autonomy, incapacitated to innovate and discover new frontiers of knowledge.  And teachers do not enjoy academic freedom of thought and expression, freedom to teach and communicate ideas without fear of being targeted for punitive action. Professor Michael Polayanyi argues “academic freedom is a fundamental necessity for production of true knowledge.”  Critical thinking is the core of academic freedom both for teachers and students, that is the right to question and reflect on their own knowledge and information presented to them, without inviting institutional censorship.  The critical thinking is necessary for self-realization. 

Teaching is an exalted profession. However, what we see is degradation of the profession.  During my teaching career, spanning over three decades, I never witnessed any instance of a teacher or student being penalised for his opinions-left, right and centre.  Academic freedom is increasingly under assault from the ruling dispensation, supported by right-wing student groups who act as agent provocateurs. On January 5, masked thugs armed with sticks, iron rods and sledgehammers, barged into Jawaharlal Nehru University campus and went on rampage. In the unprecedented mayhem, some 36 persons were injured. It was a well orchestrated premeditated assault on the premier university, known for fierce intellectual debates and dialogue. The JNU has been a university of humanities and social sciences, where the students are well-informed, articulate in expressing their views on issues fearlessly, often taking strong anti-establishment stand.  If only the Vice Chancellor Jagadish Kumar entered into a dialogue with the students protesting against the fee hike, the university could have been saved from such a disgrace.  He is unable to appreciate the vibrant liberal ethos of the university. He made no efforts to protect his students and teachers from the hoodlums. The students and the teachers are accused of being anti-national and charged of sedition. The fact that about 250 cases are filed in Delhi High Court against the university shows how once a pride national institution is destroyed. 

Similar is the story of Aligarh Muslim University, Jamia Millia and many other Institutions where the students are charged of sedition and faced police brutality. How can there be healthy intellectual stimulus in our universities, when there is political interference and we have ideologically biased and incompetent persons running the universities? A Minister in Udhav Thackeray’s government of Maharashtra made an allegation that the persons owing allegiance to the RSS were appointed as the Vice Chancellors in the State and demanded an inquiry.  Ever since the right wing party came to power at the Centre, the persons endorsing the ideology of the Sangh Parivar are appointed as Heads of Universities.

The decline of public institutions has contributed to downgrading the teaching profession.  It is the public Institutions, where the academic freedom flourished, that produced the Presidents of India- Radhakrishnan, Zakir Hussain, Shankar Dayal Sharma,Abdul Kalam and Pranab Mukherjee- and the noble laureate Amartya Sen- all teachers.  And the JNU produced noble laureate Abhijit Banerjee and the Union Ministers Nirmala Sitaraman and S.Jaishankar. It is nigh impossible to produce such eminent personalities with the total control on institutions of higher learning by the State.  The NEP gives much importance to vocational and skill education, knocking out the academic freedom and pushing whatever public institutions of liberal education left out to the brink. When the Oxford University Union conducts live public debates on public affairs addressed by persons like Shashi Tharoor and Prashant Bhushan, the Indian universities are suppressing the academic freedom of discussion and debate.  We can’t imagine in the largest democracy, the students and the teachers being charged of sedition for not toeing the line with the political establishment. The intolerance of academic dissent and the fear of reprisal have made our institutions incapable of promoting healthy academic culture and intellectual stimulus.

With no security of service and teachers appointed on contract, hired and fired, the academic freedom in our institutions is seriously impeded.  The technical and market oriented courses provide no real education; do not provide platform for critical thinking. Even in academic seminars and conferences, there is no free exchange of views and ideas and the participants are told not to speak on issues that antagonize the political establishment.  When the learning and thought processes are conditioned and controlled, the human mind cannot grow and evolve. And conforming to the system and blindly accepting what authorities decide is a sign of serfdom and negation of human evolution.  While academic freedom was critical to the vision of university system earlier, it is now increasingly devalued in favor of administrative centralization and political control, with Heads of Institutions preferring silence, not wanting to displease the authorities.

It is befitting to recall Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore’s rendition: 

“Where the mid is without fear and the head is held high;

 Where knowledge is free;

 Where the world has not broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

 Where words come out from the depth of truth;

 Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

 Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way

    into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

 Where the mind is led forward by thee into

    ever-widening thought and action…

 Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.” 

As the guardians of civilisation, it is the obligation of teachers to  arrest the erosion of academic freedom.