The Delhi University administration last week ordered the cancellation of an academic seminar scheduled as part of the Friday research colloquium series at the Delhi School of Economics (DSE). The speaker, Dr. Namita Wahi, a senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, was scheduled to speak on constitutional changes and judicial interpretations of the right to property.

The seminar, titled 'Land, Property and Democratic Rights,' had been organised as part of the Department of Sociology’s ‘Friday Colloquium’ series and was  to be held on October 31. 

Professor Nandini Sundar, the convenor of Friday colloquium, in a social media post said that the administration’s directions were unreasonable and indicative of the declining academic freedom in India. 

I have been a regular attendee of the research colloquium at DSE and the academic discussions at the colloquium have contributed to my intellectual journey as a student. My friends and I would often wait for Fridays for such discussions and often would find ourselves sitting in the first row. 

However, this uninvited intervention from the administration, by censoring critical dialogue and discussion, appears to be an impediment in student engagements with academics and theory beyond the classroom. 

Discouraging critical dialogue

Besides compromising with autonomy and integrity of DSE, it is a serious attempt to raise a meek and compliant institution void of critical thought and inquiry. It is a normalisation of the national and global trend of state interference in research and academic practice. 

Instances ranging from warning notices to a PhD scholar at the South Asian University and their supervisor for citing an interview of Noam Chomsky to prohibition of  “political” events in IIT Bombay have been noted in the past.

These interventions are assaults on academic freedom that have moved from textbook revisions to censure on dialogue and debate, which has the potential of self-censorship on critical thought and inquiry. 

Scholars across the globe have developed a self-inflicted fear regarding dissent. Professor Zoya Hasan called it the manifestation of ‘anti-intellectualism bias’ to downgrade social sciences and humanities to inconsequential subjects. 

This anti-intellectualism bias is sustained by administrative action converging neoliberalism and majoritarian politics leading to centralised control and erosion of spaces for dialogue and diversity. 

These assaults on academic freedom affect marginalised individuals disproportionately by limiting discussions on social justice and resistances. It diminishes the egalitarian promises of higher education by eliminating critical debates from campus and leads to structural continuation of inequalities even among literate masses. 

Anti-democratic implications

Such interventions pose a larger risk for Indian democracy, turning campuses into spaces of ideological and political conformity rather than intellectual critique. It poses harm to India’s standing in knowledge production and pluralist democracy. 

Academic freedom is essential for democratic citizenship; it is dialogue and dissent which makes democracies meaningful and sustains them against totalitarian regimes. American philosopher and academic Martha Nussbaum mentions that a healthy democratic society needs independent-minded and creative individuals, who have the character and confidence to resist arbitrary authority and hierarchical attitudes. 

Universities are the spaces where this confidence is harboured, a space to resist arbitrary authority, foster diversity and maintain critical debate that underpins democracy. However, recent political interventions like censorship and control on academic practice have surely hindered this democratic potential across campuses. 

This impediment is reflected in India’s 169th position out of 179 in academic freedom index. Amidst recent political developments, critical academic practice provided alternative socio-political imagination. However, with these restrictive actions on academic conscience, we can only hope for renewed commitment to academic autonomy and protection of spaces for rigorous, pluralistic discussion as critical to India’s democratic values.  

Jatin Mathur is an alumnus of Delhi University's Department of Sociology.

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