On March 17th earlier this year, Pratap Bhanu Mehta resigned from Ashoka University as he thought he would be a “political liability” due to him being associated with the university. After 2 days, Arvind Subramanian also resigned from the same university as he said that Ashoka “can no longer provide space for academic expression and freedom”. C.P Chandrasekhar of JNU resigned from a government panel set up to review India’s statistical data in January, 2020.
Professor Kholoud Saber from Egypt had her scholarship abroad terminated by Cairo University. Likewise, Professor Ahmad Reza Jalali, an Iranian-Swedish Doctor, was sentenced to death over espionage and being in collaboration with Israel. Patrick Zaki, an Egyptian postgraduate student has been detained in Egypt since February, 2020. He was pursuing a master’s degree in ‘Women and gender studies’ at the University of Bologna. Are we looking at a trend? Is there something under the covers that we can't fathom? Is the current political scenario forming a pattern for such instances to happen so regularly? Are we really dealing with a case of constrictive academic freedom?
In the passing...we, in India, are not doing too well anyways on freedom of academia. Ref. chart below and look for saffron color! This study by ‘Inside Higher Ed’ shows the global levels of Academic Freedom as of 2019.
Pratap Bhanu Mehta is among India’s most perceptive and cutting columnists. The letter he wrote to students and his fellow faculty members after his resignation explaining the reason for quitting while expressing his gratitude to both his students and colleagues for supporting him smells of frustration with the larger forces - the odour gets stronger if you pay attention to some of his past writings and interviews. In these earlier writings and speeches, we can see that he is critical of the government and openly voiced his opinions. One year back, in an interview with ‘The Wire’, he stated that “It’s literally a who’s who of this govt basically declaring as openly as they can that they want to play a politics divisive….. and the targets perpetually shift, it's not just minorities, its universities, anybody who dares to call themselves liberal…” Over 150 academicians from international universities, including Columbia, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Oxford, and Cambridge, have come out in support of scholar Pratap Bhanu Mehta. These include Homi K Bhabha, Anne F Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University; Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean at UC Berkeley School of Law; Rogers Smith, Christopher H Browne Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania; among others - so this is no mean a list. Arvind Subramanian, an economist and a professor at Ashoka University also gave in his resignation letter in support while stating that the university can no longer provide academic freedom and freedom of speech.
All these instances make it vividly clear that there is a growing need for freedom of Academia in modern society. Scholars and professors alike need to have a liberal platform to voice their thoughts, opinions and ideas. For the growth of society as well as the younger generations, it’s necessary for academia to be free and value everyone’s mindsets and suggestions. Students need to have the access to a multi-disciplinary approach and that can only be made possible through academic freedom. Inquiry-based learning can take place only if there is freedom of academia. Inquiry-based learning is a form of learning that occurs by posing questions, thoughts, ideas, problems and scenarios. New ideas, solutions, opinions and perspectives can only be expressed thoroughly if academia is liberal. These help in imparting contemporary knowledge and critical thinking skill
Suppression is not a virtue for any action - even lesser when it's being forced upon academia. History is ripe with examples of Academia & scholarly having steered society ahead, having shown us the next path - be it Gandhi or Marx or Dr C V Raman or Vivekananda or Angela Davis or B. R. Ambedkar who were heard and made a difference. There are also many examples like Galileo or Martin Luther King Jr or Nelson Mandela whose voices were suppressed but they were proven right and their research or suggestions paved the way forward.
We, as humans, our societies, and our political ideologies are nothing but a speck in the larger scheme of the Universe, and eventually the right path, and righteous thoughts propel ahead and prosper. Be mindful of political leaders and/or suppressors - depending on whether you’re different or the same!
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