Failing to Defend Academic Freedom

 

 

 

 

  

Failing to Defend Academic Freedom

The Ashoka University- a Liberal Arts and Science University- was established in 2014.  It is a private non-profit University that claims to be “a pioneer in its focus on providing a liberal education at par with the best in the world...committed to maintaining the highest intellectual and academic standards… help students become well-rounded individuals who can think critically about issues from multiple perspectives, communicate effectively and become leaders with a commitment to public service.”However, the resignation of Pratap Bhanu Mehta raises question mark on its tall claims and credentials.

On March 17, 2021, noted public intellectual Mehta, had resigned as a Professor of Political Science.The student newspaper of the University The Edict dated March 17, 2021 reported:“the resignation of Professor Pratap Bhanu Mehta was motivated by an understanding that if Prof. Mehta resigned, the University’s efforts to acquire a new plot of land to expand the campus would get much smoother. Additionally, formal recognition for the fourth-year post-graduate diploma, Ashoka Scholars’ Program, was also hinted at being part of the deal.”It took only seven years for the elite Ashoka University to fall from the grace, its founders and trustees letting down the fundamental vision that animated the Institution.

Professor Mehta in his resignation letter addressed to the Vice Chancellor Malabika Sarkar, said:  "After a meeting with Founders it has become abundantly clear to me that my association with the university may be considered a political liability. My public writing in support of a politics that tries to honour constitutional values of freedom and equal respect for all citizens, is perceived to carry risks for the university…A liberal university will need a liberal political and social context to flourish...”This has promted another leading economist of the Ashoka University Arvind Subramanian also to tender his resignation. His resignation letter reads: “The circumstances involving the resignation of Professor Mehta have devastated me…that someone of such integrity and eminence, who embodied the vision underlying Ashoka felt compelled to leave is troubling. That even Ashoka with its private status and backing by private capital- can no longer provide a space for academic expression and freedom is ominously disturbing.”

Curiously, Mehta was forced to step down as the Vice Chancellor, two years ago, indicting the university’s establishment, pointing fingers at the political regime. With the exit of elites from public institutions and the proliferation of private institutions, Ashoka University held a hope to harness the resources of private philanthropy to address failures and deficiencies of both the state and the market. Unfortunately that hope is belied.

Over 150 prominent academicians from internationally reputed universities, including Columbia, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Oxford and Cambridge, in an open letter addressed to the Asoka University Trustees, Administrators and Faculty, have expressed their distress at the exit of Mehta under political pressure: “A prominent critic of the current Indian government and defender of academic freedom, he had become a target for his writings. It seems that Ashoka’s Trustees, who should have treated defending him as their institutional duty instead all but forced his resignation…We reaffirm the importance of the values that he has always practiced. In political life, these are free argument, tolerance, and democratic spirit of equal citizenship. In the university, they are free inquiry, candor, and rigorous distinction between the demands of intellectual honesty and the pressure of politicians, funders or ideological animus.”

The signatories to the letter included Canadian Philosopher Charles Taylor, Professor of Philosophy and Law Kwame Apppiah, New York University, Yale English Professor David Bromwich, Social Scientist Partha Chatterjee, Columbia University, Oxford History Professor Faisal Devji, Philosopher Martha C.Nussbaum,University of Chicago, and Harvard Humanities Professor Homi K.Bhabha. Former Governor of RBI, Raghuram Rajan- economist and Professor at the University of Chicago- has remarked: “Free speech is the soul of a great university. By compromising on it, the founders have bartered away its soul.Static societies where criticism is silenced are doomed societies, which eventually succumb to the weight of their authoritarianism and group think.”

The Indian Express in its editorial dated March 19, aptly observed:  “Mehta’s exit is a seminal moment because it points to the university’s unwillingness and inability to protect the freedom of expression. It is true that the challenge of constitutional autonomy is sharpened terribly by the dominant political ideology that has shown a will to conquer all spaces, and which will not hesitate to weaponise the mandate to target dissent. It is also true that the larger environment is one in which the countervailing and unelected institutions that were supposed to, in the constitutional design, apply the check and maintain the balance, are not holding. They are caving in…” By bending when asked, the Trustees of Ashoka University “have inaugurated the slide, and surrendered the possibilities of the University’s rise. Because vindictiveness feeds on cowardice…That a fancy campus and a bunch of glittering CVs does never an institution make.” Ramachandra Guha blames the “spinelessness of the Trustees, who have chosen to crawl when asked to bend.”

When teachers speak or write in public, they are free to express their opinions without fear from institutional censorship. Academic tenure protects academic freedom by ensuring that teachers can be fired only for causes such as gross professional incompetence or misbehavior that evokes condemnation. According to the Academics For Academic Freedom, the UK, academic freedom  means that- (a) academics, both inside and outside the classroom, have unrestricted  liberty to question and test received wisdom  and to put forward controversial and unpopular opinions; and  that (b) academic institutions have no right to curb the exercise of this  freedom by members of their staff, or use it as ground for disciplinary action or dismissal.

After the prestigious national public universities, like JNU, AMU, Jamia and Jadavpur, are targeted, it is now the turn of elite private universities. If the state is intolerant of any criticism, the educational institutions are expected to defend academic freedom. The institutions are losing academic autonomy due to weak and timid academic administrators and pliable managements. The UGC- an autonomous regulating body in higher education- is reduced to a desk office of the Education Ministry. The persons subscribing to a particular political ideology are picked up to run the universities, compromising with merit and academic independence. And the academic community has become so numb that it chooses to remain silent, unable to raise voice against encroachment on academic freedom. 

One expected Mehta to defend his writings as an academic intellectual, instead of resigning and succumbing to pressure. Isn't it how authorities get rid of inconvenient people? History is a testimony that it is the people who had the courage of conviction and stood their ground made a difference to the quality of human life. By resigning, he only helped the university to axe a vocal critic of the political establishment to secure its narrow private gain rather than serve a larger national interest. The intellectuals are expected to display moral and mental toughness.

What is the relevance of higher education, if students and teachers cannot express freely without fear? The research in universities will become farcical in the absence of critical thinking and unbiased filtering of knowledge. Why pretend to promote higher education and talk of raising Indian universities to global standards? How can knowledge be free if pursed through a political prism?  It is a disturbing pattern that the educational institutions prefer to toe the line of the ruling dispensation, rather than stand up to uphold ethical values and intellectual freedom. To them, being loyal to the political establishment, committed to a particular ideology, has become imperative than defending institutional integrity. The people running the portals of higher learning are devoid of vision and courage. And the private universities have turned out to be more vulnerable and susceptible to political pressure. At least in JNU, despite all that turmoil it has been witnessing for the past six year, no teacher is forced to resign.