What Ashoka University Can Learn From Gandhi, Tagore and Nehru's Thoughts on Academic Freedom

The latest sinister development in Ashoka University – personnel from the Intelligence Bureau (IB) entering the campus to quiz associate professor Sabyasachi Das on his research paper 'Democratic Backsliding in India in the World’s Largest Democracy' – constitutes an example of intimidation and flagrant violation of university autonomy. The paper argued that there may have been manipulation of the electoral process in 2019, benefitting the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Confronted with sharp attacks from BJP leaders and the university's decision to distance itself from the paper, Das resigned. Faculty members and students were outraged by Ashoka University's stand that it "values research that is critically peer-reviewed and published in reputed journals". "To the best of our knowledge," the university had stated, "the paper in question has not yet completed a critical review process and has not been published in an academic journal.”

This is an appalling example of the suppression of academic freedom and creativity in a higher educational institution. Such freedom is indispensable for any university to pursue academic activities celebrating originality and anchored in rigorous research. It is clear that the powers that be at in the Union government are directly or indirectly exercising influence over the authorities at Ashoka University to sternly convey the message that study, research and publication of articles critical of the regime are unacceptable and would be visited with consequences.

Gandhi on the British regime's control over universities

What India is witnessing in the form of an all-out assault on the autonomy of Ashoka University and its regrettable capitulation to such menacing interferences reminds one of British rule, when universities of pre-independent India were being controlled by the colonial government directly or indirectly.

This was best evidenced by M.K. Gandhi's address at a students' meeting in Benaras on November 26, 1920, during the non-cooperation movement. In his speech, he appealed to the students to boycott even Benaras University if they felt that the Lieutenant-Governor, in spite of his assertion that the government exercised no control over the university, actually influenced it indirectly. In saying so, Gandhi was clearly conveying to the students that the British government was interfering in the internal affairs of the university in some form or another.

Yet again in the same address, he said, "I tell you, so long as the influence of this Empire reaches the university directly or indirectly, you have no choice but to leave it." Gandhi was driving home the point that the probability of the British government dictating that a university act in a particular manner was very high and almost certain.

A hundred and three years later, when India is celebrating the 76th anniversary of its independence, the country is witnessing the sordid spectacle of IB officials being ordered to interrogate an academic and even other faculty members, to ascertain if he himself authored the aforementioned research paper or others collaborated with him to give shape to it. So are we confronting a replay of the British colonial era in 2023, in violation of the precious  autonomy so critical to the functioning of universities?

Also read: Ashoka University’s Descent into Academic (un)Freedom

Tagore on universities

In this context, it is worthwhile to recall Rabindranath Tagore's words. In 1925, in a highly critical article on the functioning of universities during British rule, he observed that those academic bodies were like “hard-boiled eggs from which you cannot expect chickens to come out”.

Nearly 100 years later, we are witnessing with consternation the clampdown on universities – which because of the severe curtailment of academic freedom are becoming like "hard-boiled eggs".

The earlier track record of professor Pratab Bhanu Mehta exiting Ashoka University indicated the growing crisis affecting the autonomy of that university. Students and teachers who disapproved of Das's resignation and demanded his restoration as a teacher drew parallels with Mehta, who had to quit initially as the university's vice-chancellor and later as its professor because of his numerous newspaper criticising the politics and policies of the BJP regime. Professor Arvind Subramanian too resigned from Ashoka University, stating that “…despite the university’s private backing, it was still unable to provide a space for academic expression and freedom.”

The employment of IB personnel for questioning Das is even incompatible with the declaratory objectives of the Modi government's New Education Policy (NEP) 2020, tom-tommed by the present regime at the Centre as  "...the first education policy of the 21st century". It proclaims that apart from enhancing cognitive capacities, it would promote critical thinking. Therefore, it is quite imperative to ask how IB inquiries on a research paper serve the objectives set out in the NEP?

Nehru on universities

At the formative stage of our independence, India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru brilliantly outlined the role of a university by saying, it "...stands for humanism, for tolerance, for reason, for progress, for the adventure of ideas and for the search for truth". That lofty vision of a university was articulated by him in 1947 while speaking at Allahabad University, when the country faced a communal conflagration following Partition. He then warned that "...if the temple of learning becomes a home of narrow bigotry and petty objectives, how then will the nation prosper or a people grow in stature? …We are not," he said, "going to reach our goal through crookedness or flirting with evil in the hope that it may lead to good." He then stated, "The right end can never be fully achieved through wrong means."

Also read: Safeguarding Academic Freedom Is the Bedrock of India’s Constitutional Morality

Nehru's espousal in 1947 for eschewing "narrow bigotry and petty objectives" so that universities would render services to the country is of abiding significance.

A week before independence, on August 7, 1947, Gandhi wrote that universities “must stimulate the faculty of thinking” and students “have to create public opinion by offering constructive and enlightened criticism”.

The authorities of Ashoka University must pay heed to these sane voices to defend academic freedom so essential to uphold intellectual dissent.

S.N. Sahu served as Officer on Special Duty to President of India K.R. Narayanan.

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