As a debate rages throughout the nation over the “threat to academic freedom” and rising political interference in universities publish the incident at Delhi’s Ashoka University — the place the resignations of senior college members Pratap Bhanu Mehta and Arvind Subramanian led to widespread protests – Vice Chancellor of Savitribai Phule Pune University, Dr Nitin Karmalkar, admitted that threats and exterior pressures usually are not alien to educational establishments.
Karmalkar, who was attending an Idea Exchange with The Indian Express, was requested if there was any perceptible risk to educational freedom and improve in exterior pressures on universities over the previous few years.
“Threats to academic freedom have always existed. To a great extent, it depends on the leadership. During my student days, I distinctly remember Vice-Chancellor V G Bhide, who was leading the institution… he was the kind who never listened. There are always going to be checks, it all depends on how much importance you give to them, how much entry you allow them on the campus. To a great extent, we have to listen to them. But one has to demarcate an area, how much you will allow them. Beyond which, you have to resist,” mentioned Karmalkar.
The vice-chancellor was requested to specific his opinion on the present debate on educational freedom, triggered by the current resignations on the Asoka University.
In his resignation letter, Mehta, a staunch critic of the central authorities, mentioned founders of the college had made it abundantly clear that his affiliation with the establishment was a political legal responsibility. Following Mehta’s exit, Subramanian resigned too. The resignations not solely sparked off a widespread college students’ protest on the college, it additionally prompted senior academicians from throughout the nation and overseas to lend their help to the professors, and protest towards the “attack on academic freedom”.
Karmalkar himself has been on the receiving finish of the ire of politicians. He had been pulled up for saying the reopening of schools and ignored of a number of necessary committees. The SPPU Senate, in its assembly final month, marked its protest towards the state authorities’s snub to the V-C.
However, Karmalkar mentioned he has up to now been profitable in preserving political interference off campus. “I would call myself very successful in this attempt, to the extent of 80-90 per cent of not giving ‘them’ entry. As head of the institution, we have to stand by our people. Fortunately, we haven’t had such extreme situations so far. But yes, at times of recruitment and selections, we have had calls coming in. If you give in and compromise quality, then you are done. So far, I have not done it,” he mentioned.
