Ashoka University and the Basic Tenets of ‘Academic Freedom’ in India

The response to Prof Das' paper is in line with what’s happening in almost every academic institution right now.

Image used for representation only. 

(Photo: Ashoka University)

To initiate a discussion on the ‘new’ foundations of the Indian Constitution, Chief Economic Advisor to the Prime Minister, Bibek Debroy, wrote a column this Independence Day, arguing the following: 

This is 2023, 73 years after 1950. Our current Constitution is largely based on the Government of India Act of 1935. In that sense, it is also a colonial legacy. In 2002, there was a report by a commission set up to review the working of the Constitution, but it was a half-hearted effort. As with many aspects of law reform, a tweak here and another there won’t do. We should start with first principles, as in the Constituent Assembly debates.

Some might feel these are valid, critical questions to reflect upon as India is apparently ‘shining’ from the corridors of power. Still, India’s founding constitution involved constituent assembly debates for a period of three years-gave space for critical dialogue, open access, and freedom of expression, to raise/discuss complex issues.  

What came out of it, under Dr B R Ambedkar's leadership and prowess, was a carefully crafted constitution addressing the concerns of a deeply stratified, heterogeneous socio-economic fabric in a newly born republic.  

What we now see is of course a different reality.

More recently, the nature of events unfolding at National Capital Region’s elite private Ashoka University, as a bastion of ‘liberal’ arts education, shows how an environment of unfreedoms (not freedoms) is shaping the academic culture of higher education-even in private ‘elite’ institutions where government support/money isn’t dictating the working affairs.

New Guidelines for Public Institutions

Students of such institutions almost pay to ‘buy’ liberty and learn ‘liberal education’ of the best kind.

Back in 2021, in a column written for the Indian Express, Sudheendra Kulkarni observed how the Modi government had then mounted its biggest attack on ‘academic freedom’ with its (new) diktat on organizing international webinars/conferences/workshops. The mini “surgical strike” came in the form of an “office memorandum” on 15 January 2021, from the offices of an undersecretary, the junior-most bureaucrat in the Ministry of Education, and was innocuously titled ‘Revised Guidelines for holding online/virtual Conferences, Seminars, Training, etc.’

As per the new guidelines, all “central educational institutions, publicly-funded universities ” — this category will naturally include affiliated colleges — “and organisations owned and controlled by the Government of India/State Government” were required to get prior approval from the ministry of external affairs if they want to hold online international conferences or seminars on subjects related to “security of State, Border, Northeast states, UT of J&K, Ladakh or any other issues which are clearly/purely related to India’s internal matter(s)”. Furthermore, they need approval from the appropriate “administrative secretary for the event as well as for the list of participants”.  

This was just one instance amongst the many measures taken by the current regime in its last nine years of power that was aimed at curtailing the academic freedom of public institutions. The wreckage and damage caused to ‘free’ thinking critical academic discourse from social sciences to other disciplines has now seen almost every public institution toeing the government line.

And then, came the turn of private institutions.

(Source: V-Dem Institutie, the University of Gothenburg)

Ashoka May Have Failed Basic Tenets of Academic Freedom

Observe the shape decline in the Academic Freedom Index developed by the V-Dem Institutie of the University of Gothenburg. The components of academic freedom are well defined and are broadly the same across countries by the institute (irrespective of what one might say about its methodology).  

For instance, the Academic Freedom Index is coded on the following indicators:

• Freedom to research and teach

• Freedom of academic exchange and dissemination

• Institutional autonomy

• Campus integrity

• Freedom of academic and cultural expression

While this India Forum article follows the same parameters, their authors, Nandini Sundar and Gawhar Fazili, follow a somewhat different order and emphasis, drawing on previous research on the Indian context. 

In the words of the authors, “Universities for their part must restore and strengthen conventions on institutional autonomy; and inform student and faculty unions of their rights to academic freedom and free speech. Contracts with faculty should include a clause on the protection of academic freedom, i.e., they will not be penalized for extra-mural activities. Faculty should create a network to support academics (faculty and students) at risk.”

It seems the administration and governing body of an elite institution like Ashoka failed to ensure these basic tenets of ‘academic freedom’. While Ashoka University’s administrative response to Sabyasachi Das’ paper leading to his resignation may have evoked solidarity amongst faculty members and students on campus, the action taken by the governing body and academic administration is symptomatically in alignment with what’s happening in every academic institution in India right now.

That is precariously worrying. More private institutions may follow suite and faculty members may be more explicitly shunted for pursuing critical thought.

But wasn’t the possibility of this seen coming? Or perhaps the ‘elite’ only roars in dissent when its own position, people, freedoms, and interests are threatened, without caring, nor engaging in what’s happening outside the boundaries of its/their own gated communities.

Elite, private institutions need to be forewarned about their own vulnerability to the current atmosphere of instilled fear, conformism and subjugating of democratic principles. It is the safeguarding and practice of these principles that make well-written/drafted constitutions work for their people and their welfare. 

Mr Debroy, as prolific a writer and scholar he is, must be aware of the conditions in which the socio-political, economic landscape of a regime’s nefarious actions-and attack on academic freedom- makes any reasonable dialogue on some of the most complex yet fundamental, building block questions of the Constitution a precarious challenge-no matter what the future stakes might be for 2047 or the next 1000 years.