Howard Zinn once said, “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”
Without honest dissent and constructive criticism, democracy is bound to fail. All of these went in for a toss when the Intelligence Bureau allegedly flagged several private institutions, which had been shortlisted for the second round of Institute of Eminence (IoE) tag.
Nine private institutions out of the total twelve have been described and red flagged for their anti-government critiques and activities. These include Ashoka University, OP Jindal University, KREA University, VIT Vellore, Azim Premji University, KIIT Bhubaneswar and other premier names in the country.
The note allegedly describes Pratap Bhanu Mehta, the Vice-Chancellor of the Ashoka University as “an unrelenting critic of the government.” The Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Ashish Dhawan has also been named as he “funds anti-government propaganda sites like The Wire.” Dhawan is a part of the Independent Public Spirited Media Foundation (IPSMF) that funds several sites including The Wire.
The names of the universities were recommended by an Empowered Experts Committee (EEC) headed by former Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswami for the IoE tag. They are a part of a total of 19 institutions (12 private, 7 public) shortlisted for the tag. The awardee universities will receive funding of 1000 crores over five years if they are in the public sector and complete autonomy from their regulators if they fall into the private sector.
KREA University’s board includes Raghuram Rajan who has been on the bitter side of the government after his public views on demonetization and other economic measures of the Narendra Modi-led government at the centre. KREA also has Anu Aga on its board who once infamously remarked, “Modi did little to stop the rioters in Gujarat.”
Similarly, philanthropist and industrialist Azim Premji found himself on the receiving end of the ire for his past criticism of the Smart City scheme of the current government. His comments on the growing lack of funds in the MGNREGA scheme for rural employment were not quite well received too.
Other prominent institutes that secured a place in the IB note include Naveen Jindal’s OP Jindal University at Sonipat, VIT Vellore and KIIT at Bhubaneswar. The younger Jindal had been accused of illegally allocating mining rights along with former minister Dasari Narayan Rao, by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
Likewise, the Vellore Institute of Technology, the note says, has been accused of gender discrimination and perpetuation of a sexist culture on campus by its students. The Chancellor G. Biswanathan had been critical of the first set of IoE tags when the yet to be born Jio Institute was awarded the tag under the Greenfields category.
KIIT Bhubaneswar has been accused of encroaching on forest land and violating guidelines under the environmental law.
It does not take a genius to deduce that either the administration or the founders of all the flagged universities have been critical of governmental policies. Education is meant to chip in qualities of critical thinking, analytical abilities among the students who are expected to be the leaders of tomorrow. Restraint on dissent and its discouragement are going to cost India a price it probably cannot afford when it ranks the highest in terms of youth power.
The government has always quite cleverly found a way or two to circumvent public scrutiny and evade criticism. In the case of universities like Jindal, VIT, KIIT and a few others, the IB note very cleverly points out the coal mine allocation scam, sexist rules and encroachment on forest land respectively, pushing the emphasis on anti-government activities to the background. However, it is still very much the same for higher quarters that are going to have to take a call on the issue.
The red flagging of the institutes has not gone down very well with the students. They are obviously miffed at the audacity of the authorities to flag their institutes for something as basic as dissent.
“What we are today, the growth of democratic institutions and civilization has been entirely possible due to dissent and ideas. Criticism is not something you can just run away from,” says Amlan Bibhudutt of Ashoka University. He goes on to add, “Although the government has autonomy over a lot of places, we have to decentralize it with progress lest we should become totalitarian.”
Some other institutes include the Indian Institute of Public Health, Jamia Hamdard and the Indian Institute for Human Settlements. Cyrus Guzder of the IIHS had moved a petition seeking the disputed land in the Ayodhya site to be reserved for non-religious public use.
Habil Khorakiwala, the chairman of Mumbai-based Wockhardt, made his apprehensions clear about the success of the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana and the ambitious Ayushman Bharat scheme due to the lack of infrastructural facilities.
Although Union Secretary R. Subramanyam has denied the existence of any such IB note, it seems anomalous that such details of the note should emerge if it does not exist. Education has been a tool for eradication of misinformation, having well-rounded opinions and asking questions.
If educational platforms start being rounded up for following basic precepts, then it surely defeats the entire purpose of education. While the final list is yet to be published, the whole situation raises questions on the ethics and transparency of the present central government. The prospects of Indian education surely lie in a shroud of foggy mystery and vested political interests.