New Delhi: An open letter by the economics department of Ashoka University has accused the university’s governing body of reacting to a scholar’s recent research paper in a manner that “constitutes institutional harassment, curtails academic freedom, and forces scholars to operate in an environment of fear”.The matter pertains to a paper by Sabyasachi Das, who resigned following the university’s public disassociation from his work in the wake of the political controversy triggered by his findings on ‘manipulation’ in the 2019 general election.Following his resignation, a second professor in the economics department, Pulapre Balakrishnan, also put in his papers in solidarity.The statement, issued in the name of the entire department and posted on X (Twitter) by Professor Ashwini Deshpande on August 16, publicly makes two demands: that Das be immediately reinstated, and that the university’s governing body promise to not use a committee “or any other structure” to evaluate faculty research.This is the official statement of the Department of Economics at Ashoka. @rodrikdani @SonaldeDesai @N_Kabeer @tajmahalfoxtrot @rbalakra @IAFFE https://t.co/NF4Kaq2C19— Ashwini_Deshpande (@_ADeshpande) August 16, 2023While the university’s August 1 tweet distancing itself from Das was widely criticised by academics in India and abroad, the trigger for Das’ resignation appears to be an attempt by its governing body to ‘investigate’ his recent paper and – according to university sources – get him to alter his title and abstract, at the very least.The economics department statement says that “Prof. Das did not violate any accepted norm of academic practice,” and adds:“Academic research is professionally evaluated through a process of peer review. The Governing Body’s interference in this process to investigate the merits of his recent study constitutes institutional harassment, curtails academic freedom, and forces scholars to operate in an environment of fear. We condemn this in the strongest terms and refuse as a collective to cooperate in any future attempt to evaluate the research of individual economics faculty members by the governing body.”The university’s governing body has several of its promoters as members, amongst whom the two most prominent are Pramath Raj Sinha and Ashish Dhawan. The Wire has reached out to them, and to the vice chancellor for a response to the economics department’s statement and this story will be updated as and when they reply.Stating that the “offer of resignation by our colleague Prof. Sabyasachi Das and its hasty acceptance by the university has deeply ruptured the faith that we in the faculty of the department of economics, our colleagues, our students, and well-wishers of Ashoka University everywhere, had reposed in the university’s leadership”, the faculty set a deadline of August 23 to address its concerns.“Unless these questions regarding basic academic freedoms are resolved before the start of the Monsoon 2023 semester, faculty members of the department will find themselves unable to carry forward their teaching obligations in the spirit of critical enquiry and the fearless pursuit of truth that characterise our classrooms.”The English and creative writing departments of Ashoka University have also released a statement in solidarity with the Economics Department, stipulating the same demands. “We hope, too, that Ashoka’s official social media handles will cease putting out statements discrediting academic research by its faculty members in the future,” they write. A failure to meet these demands would result in the two departments joining the economics department in its boycott of classes during the monsoon 2023 semester.Other faculty members raise concernsAccording to its website, “Ashoka University is India’s leading Liberal Arts and Sciences University providing a distinctive interdisciplinary liberal education at par with the best universities in the world.” But recent events have cast a shadow over these claims.A separate statement by 82 faculty members, drafted before Das’s resignation had been accepted, says, “Free thought within universities in India is in crisis today, largely because of the near-absolute intolerance of critique…. To stifle critique is to poison the life-blood of pedagogy; consequently, it is to damage whatever future our students might have as serious thinkers.”The statement, signed by Amit Chaudhuri, Rita Kothari, Ratul Lahkar, Deepak Mehta, Nayanjot Lahiri, Saikat Majumdar, S.M. Bhattacharjee, Aparna Vaidik, Rajendra Bhatia, Mukul Sharma, Madhavi Menon, Bikram Phookun, Pulapre Balakrishnan and 69 others, says:“Recent events around a paper published by Professor Sabyasachi Das are a reminder that the crisis is an ongoing and deep one, with implications for every academic working at Ashoka University and, for that matter, in India… It is not a crisis that will go away by wishing that papers like Professor Das’ will not be written in the future, because that is not a realistic possibility in a working institution. It will not be solved by apologies and resignations. It has to be addressed with academic freedom constituting the core of our position with regard to the crisis.”The statement notes that though the university had drafted and adopted a document for academic freedom in 2021, it has been “bewildering to witness events unfold in the last two weeks that are directly related to academic freedom in a way that makes no reference to this document and behaves, to all purposes, as if it does not exist”.The signatories said that “all responses to the matter of what may or may not be admissible in research and academic practice at Ashoka University” should be handled as per the guidelines set out in that document, “which, rather than any tweet or individual opinion, expresses the university’s position on this all-important subject”. They also said that the Committee for Academic Freedom, which the document had proposed be set up soon, “be created immediately” to bring “much-needed transparency and procedural fairness whenever such issues arise.”Balakrishnan has since also resigned from the university.Though Ashoka vice-chancellor Somak Raychaudhury said on Monday that the university “affords its faculty and students the most enabling environment for academic freedom at an institution of higher education,” and that this “academic freedom also applied to Mr. Das,” the charge levelled by the economics department casts doubts on this assurance.As The Wire has reported, the university’s stand on Das has drawn criticism from students and academics, especially given the track record of how it had handled its reputed vice chancellor Pratap Bhanu Mehta, when he was both nudged and persuaded to resign in March 2021 due to his media writings on the politics of the ruling BJP.One critic called Ashoka’s comment on Das’ paper an example of ‘democratic backsliding in academia’.In 2017, allegations had been levelled by the faculty council that the university’s founders had asked two members of the non-teaching staff – deputy manager of academic affairs Saurav Goswami and programme manager of academic affairs Adil Mushtaq Shah – and one faculty member, Rajendran Narayanan, to resign in 2016, over the fact that they had signed a petition against violence in Kashmir after Burhan Wani’s death and demanded a plebiscite in the state.
