New Delhi: More than 400 academics and civil society members have written to Azim Premji University (APU), asking it to reconsider recent measures taken against its own students. Last week, the university administration approached Bengaluru Police against its own students who host a reading circle. This happened after Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-run student body, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) members allegedly vandalised the university premises because they disagreed with the topic of discussion advertised by the SPARK reading circle students.The topic SPARK chose – alleged mass rapes in Kunan Poshpora, Jammu and Kashmir, by security forces decades ago – has roiled politics and society in India and the erstwhile state in the past. Judicial and official pronouncements have failed to bring closure, especially to those critical of the role played by security forces in Kashmir while suppressing militancy in the region.According to the letter’s signatories, in this dispute over a contentious issue between two groups of youth – one from within the university and one of outsiders – APU failed to back its students. The letter points out that publicly available records and media reports show the ABVP youth assault APU students and vandalise properties.“Criminal law is an instrument of last resort. It must not be used to regulate student expression, tomanage reputational anxiety, or to appease violent disruption by external political actors,” says the letter.APU was founded by the Azim Premji Foundation with a mission to promote critical inquiry. Its establishment – as of other private liberal institutions – was seen as a welcome signal of education reform via privatisation in India.The signatories to the letter now express concern that instead of resolving disputes through settled procedures, the university approached police against its students. They write:Universities address questions of procedure, event approvals and internal disagreements through established disciplinary and governance mechanisms. Converting such matters into criminal allegations risks conflating debate or administrative lapse with illegality and introduces the threat of state coercion into the heart of academic life.APU is often seen as one of the few well-funded private universities with a progressive intellectual culture, somewhat comparable, though at a more modest scale, to Ashoka University or Tata Institute of Social Sciences campuses. Both those institutions have had numerous run-ins with students and their own faculty, over censorship of ideas and promotion of Hindutva nationalism.Last year, Associate Professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad of Ashoka University was arrested and charged with sedition by Haryana Police over two social media posts critical of war against the backdrop of India’s Operation Sindoor against Pakistan following the deadly Pahalgam terrorist attack. The faculty association of Ashoka University had demanded “his immediate and unconditional release”.Ashoka University had in a statement appeared cautious and distanced itself from state action against Mahmudabad, who taught political science at the university.“Comments made by a faculty member on his personal social media pages do not represent the opinion of the university. These statements have been made by him independently in his individual capacity…. Ashoka University and all members of the Ashoka community are proud of India’s armed forces and support them unequivocally in their actions towards maintaining national security. We stand in solidarity with the nation and our forces,” it said.The letter now sent by academics and commentators to APU hints at this history, saying, “Moments of crisis test institutions. We urge Azim Premji University to act swiftly to restore confidence within its community and uphold the principles it has long espoused.”Screenshot of the open letter sent by academics and others to APU, showing the express demands.The student body of APU has also raised concerns about the university administration approaching police against the SPARK students. (SPARK is backed by the All India Students Association, affiliated with the Communist Party of India (Marxist). The student council said that students do require permission before organising events, but even if that was not secured – as APU has said – the administration ought to resolve issues through in-house procedures, not police cases.Also read: The Crisis of Courage in India’s Liberal UniversitiesOther aacademics have also expressed concern that APU’s steps against SPARK highlight it is “buckling” under pressure from Hindutva bodies. “APU, founded with explicit commitment to liberal values, has demonstrated that even institutions created specifically to resist ideological capture cannot withstand the sustained assault on academic freedom under the Bharatiya Janata Party government’s rule,” wrote academic Anand Teltumbde in Outlook magazine.Even publicly funded universities have faced similar pressures of creeping Hindutva nationalism: at Jawaharlal Nehru University, student politics and dissent have repeatedly drawn police action, at the behest of the university administration as well. Recently, at Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi, a foundation-day programme became contentious after a Delhi Police musical performance (euologising “Akhand Bharat“) was invited by the administration, despite the force’s past clashes with students.Among the signatories to the open letter for APU are prominent academics and public intellectuals such as Jayati Ghosh, Prabhat Patnaik, Nivedita Menon, Nandini Sundar, Uma Chakravarti, Zoya Hasan, Satish Deshpande, Sanjay Srivastava and Sukanta Chaudhuri. The list also includes cultural and media figures such as filmmaker Sanjay Kak, journalist and former national affairs editor of The Telegraph Manini Chatterjee, and writer and writer V. Geetha.