Curbs On Academic Freedom

  Nalini Taneja

WHILE our attention has been on Iraq and globalisation policies, and at a more local level on the effects of liberalisation policies on livelihood and working conditions, the ministry of human resources development, headed by the RSS minister, Murli Manohar Joshi-- who claims a ‘first’ in fulfilling the Hindutva agenda—has managed to push through guidelines that effectively curb academic freedom. Such moves had been initiated a few months back, but vigilance and uproar by the academic community had then led to their withdrawal. They were finally issued on January 31, 2003, according to a news report (Santwana Bhattacharya, Indian Express, March 26, 2003), and the academic community is yet to respond to them for the simple reason that in its characteristic fashion the RSS puts up a big show in the media when it wants to make a spectacle, but can be quite stealthy when it wants to effect decisive changes in a piece-meal but determined fashion. Universities are yet to take cognisance of the new guidelines, and most teachers’ organisations are yet to learn of them.

MOTIVATED GUIDELINES

The guidelines were issued to all central universities, directing them to take permission from the ministry of HRD for “all forms of collaborations and other international academic exchange activities” taking place in the country—seminars, conferences, workshops, guest lecturers, research, etc. According to the news report, the new guidelines, “for the first time, give the HRD ministry full control not only over foreign exchange programmes but also over the selection and monitoring procedure for foreign scholar/students coming to India for any form of academic activity.”

The guidelines clearly state: “Such activities should be taken up keeping the national and institutional interest in mind” which is to “safeguard the country’s political security and sensitivity angle.”

The presumption is not only that it is the ministry that knows best and gets to decide whose views are in the ‘national interest’, but that ideas are dangerous and need to be curbed and circumscribed in order to safeguard ‘national security’. Such guidelines are also clearly violative of the autonomy of the universities and the rights of its statutory academic bodies, apart from a general attack on the fundamental rights freedom of speech, expression, and political opinion, guaranteed by our Constitution.

Exposing the real intentions of the government, the guidelines go on to say that foreign participation should not be generally considered for conferences of political, semi-political, communal or religious nature or those related to human rights or sensitive technical subjects. A central university, proposing to invite a foreign scholar as a visiting professor/lecturer may do so after obtaining prior approval from the HRD ministry for which they have to provide details of the terms and conditions of visit, particulars and curriculum vitae and content of the lecture etc.  For individual scholars wanting to undertake research/fieldwork, he/she has to make an application in the prescribed performa and get his/her research proposal approved by the government. (IE)

One can see clearly that while storytellers of the N Rajaram fame, who masquerade as ‘eminent scientists’ and even fabricated computer generated images in order to prove the Indus civilisation as Vedic civilisation, will be pouring into our universities at the behest of the government sponsored programmes, academic stalwarts like Michael Witzel, who exposed such frauds, will not be given permission to enter this country despite invitations from universities. This is of course just one obvious example, but there are hundreds of scholars and contents of themes that the Hindutva motivated ministry will find objectionable, which could otherwise contribute to research inspired by secular, democratic and genuinely scholarly intentions.

SMACKING Mc CARTHIESM

In case of seminar/symposium/workshop, universities have to take security clearance from the ministry of home affairs as well and also seek prior approval of the minister of HRD. (IE)

As expected, with just those countries who are our neighbours and with whom academic and cultural exchange should be the norm rather than an exception, and for which democratic minded people and organisations have been continuously requesting the government, in order to improve the people to people dialogue, the government guidelines are most stringent.

All the neighbouring countries—China, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan—are on the ‘Red Channel’, for which only the ministry of home affairs can give permission, for even short visits like seminars. Joint research or any similar activities involving them are completely ruled out.(IE) Problems are already surfacing in this regard with participation in the World Social Forum to be held in Delhi later this year.

Such initiatives are in keeping with the general perspective of the BJP government on education which aims at ‘opening’ up the education as service sector for private business houses at the behest of the WTO regime in so far as ‘market friendly’ courses are concerned, but insists on controlling the content of education with reference to humanities, social sciences and liberal thought. It is a part of well thought out fascist policy moves in the context of globalisation and the accompanying right wing upsurge of political forces, with a premium on the privileged strata of society as well as curbing of democratic thought. The guidelines blatantly state: the government “also needs to know what’s going on in the universities which are run by tax-payers money”, completely glossing over the fact that its policy drives aim at ensuring that less and less of this tax payers money will now flow into higher education, and an even lesser proportion of it will now be budgeted for the education of the majority of those tax payers, or for the courses utlised by them.

These guidelines remind one of Hitler’s Germany, and the McCarthy era of the Cold War in the US, when universities and research and cultural institutions found numerous ‘advises’ given on the kind of academic activities that ought to be promoted or discouraged, followed by witch hunts of individual scholars and purging of some of the best minds from the universities.

We may not feel the curbs in our daily lives yet within the academic institutions, but it is important to see the directions that such policy moves imply, and to note that precisely such guidelines could become the basis for legitimising thoroughly illegal persecutions of scholars and suppression of academic life as and when required to be effected by a government preparing the grounds for such a takeover on its part, should an opportunity present itself, by even now undermining the secular-democratic fabric of our nation-state.