Freedom is a central organ of all necessities. Just like food, clothing, shelter, wifi, and education, freedom is also a basic need. Without the freedom to think, speak, inquire and act, we cannot proudly declare ourselves to live in the right spirit of civilization. In this blog, I intend to highlight my primary experience (professional exposure) in academics. I am an Associate Professor based in Mumbai, followed with visiting in few educational institutes for lectureship of interdisciplinary studies. Recently, if I am not wrong, I am observing a national trend which is similar to the political economy of Nazism. This has an impact on academic freedom of all professors, researchers, and educators, not just mine. This trend is something that is not widely debated in our public sphere, mainstream media, and academic space. Academic freedom is a term defining which is not simple despite its simplicity. This idea is designed such that the teachers or professors are given the freedom to have different opinions or ideology in their thought processes. They are given the right to challenge the existing wisdom without any fear of being tried by the course coordinator, administrator or having to face any repercussions later that may cause problems in their careers. I hope that my blog, on the occasion of Teacher’s Day, endeavors to highlight the unseen issues and implications of the lack of academic freedom in India.
Given the socioeconomic problems offered by the current regime since 2014, there is an urgent need for emphasizing academic freedom as a core component of ensuring scientific learning, epistemological criticisms, ontological inquiries and rational thinking. The governmental machineries led by PM Modi are consciously missing out to understand the significance of academic freedom, knowledge building, and critical literature systems. I am seeing an unfortunate trend in this regard. I am not referring to JNU, Aligarh University, Jamia Islamia and other communistic agencies. It’s recent in my case for being a libertarian. The reason (feedback) is simple, clear and direct: “Do not criticize nationalism, GST, demonetization and India’s PM Narendra Modi in your lecture as students dislike your analysis, facts, and thoughts.” I am not shocked because it’s not the first and the last feedback in my professional life. In the last 8 years, I am anyway receiving a “feedback” for speaking factually, coherently and originally. When UPA was in power, I was told to adopt the principles of political correctness in my class with Islamic students at some inst. in Mumbai. After PM Modi coming to power in 2014, I don’t see any difference except the prolusion of cow (beef) in public discourse. Well, no amount of feedback or legal approaches will hinder my attitude because government’s ego is not above my conscience.
My disagreement is not about abhorrence or offending. It is simply stapled to check on the unscientific temperament of the govt. and its’ policies. The saffronization of academic culture in contemporary India should realize that UNESCO’s International Conference (1950) articulated three interdependent principles for which every university should stand. First, the right to pursue knowledge for its own sake and to follow wherever the search for truth may lead; second, the tolerance of divergent opinion and freedom from political interference; and third, the obligation as social institutions to promote, through teaching and research, the principles of freedom and justice, of human dignity and solidarity, and to develop mutually material and moral aid on an international level. But, in India, academic freedom is increasingly under assault from the sheeples of statism. It is also increasingly devalued in favor of administrative centralization and standardization.
Ramachandra Guha, a distinguished historian, claims that the Indian left has consistently interfered in university appointments in both Kerala and West Bengal. In fact, in West Bengal, the former left-wing government of Jyoti Basu had acquired such an astonishing degree of control over higher education that no critic of Marxism stood a chance of becoming the vice-chancellor of Calcutta University, let alone holding a senior faculty position. Sadly, that is what India’s best institutes and universities have degenerated into: Factories producing hundreds of thousands of graduates year after year with scarcely any concern for promoting cutting-edge research or stimulating innovation. If that isn’t disappointing enough, a recent study states that India lags behind Kenya in research, a country whose per capita income is almost half of India.
Government interventionism is rampant in the academic sphere of India. They control our thoughts through syllabus, incentives, bureaucracy, obligations and academic culture and others. In my case, I have been advised to introspect upon my political consciousness. But, however, I swear to not alter my views on India’s political economy because I choose to resign from the spiral of silence. If I submit to this saffron spiralism, I would become a “useful idiot”. My question is simple: What is the value of free speech without the right to disagree? No doubt that India (138/190 nations) is just one rank above Pakistan, on “freedom of speech” global index.
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About the Author
Prof. Jaimine Vaishnav is an anarcho-capitalist based in Mumbai, India. His hobbies are about defending the liberties of all his dissents without charging any fee at the cost of nobody.
Twitter a/c
@meritocratic
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