Pratap Bhanu Mehta on the IITM controversy - Higher abdication
The controversy over the Ambedkar-Periyar Study Circle at IIT Madras displays multiple pathologies of Indian higher education. Rather than addressing problems, the sector compounds every social division, governance failure, and our sheer littleness. It is almost as if this is a sector where all thinking, common sense and plain decency go to die.
Much horror has been expressed at the fact that the HRD ministry
seems to have interfered in the functioning of an academic institution,
forwarding an anonymous complaint, ostensibly ideologically motivated. But to
think this is the root of a problem is to confuse the general pathology of the
system with a specific instance. Let us be very clear. The relationship between government and academic
institutions has been debased for a long time. So-called progressive education
ministers have enshrined practices that make heads of academic institutions
supplicants to even director- or under secretary-level officials.
The
forwarding of anonymous complaints, sometimes even to the CBI, so that the
ministry acquired control over vice chancellors, was an art perfected by many a
previous minister. This history is important. Because two wrongs don’t make a
right. But the credibility of many protesting against this HRD ministry’s
actions is vitiated by the fact that they were willing to put up with similar
practices, even worse, when it was politically convenient. If higher education
is to be rescued, it will need interlocutors with greater credibility. The
sector will have to move beyond charges of hypocrisy. But for that it will have
to find interlocutors less hypocritical.
Second, the real ire should be directed at the academic
establishment itself. The leadership of IIT-M has once again proved the
suspicion that when the history of Indian higher education is written, academic
self-abdication will rank higher than political perfidy. Even if the ministry
forwards a letter, there is no reason that the university leadership has to act
on it. At least, it need not act on it without giving the students a fair
hearing. The IIT’s claim that the Ambedkar-Periyar group violated rules seems
contrived since it comes after the fact.
The leadership crisis in higher
education is acute. India has some fantastic academics who have braved adverse
conditions. But many have either seceded from institutional matters or are
willingly compliant with the powers that be. Residual collegial piety still prevents
us from naming and shaming many. But if you draw up a list of top academics who
have willingly signed on the dotted line presented by government, you will feel almost
queasy. The occasions when academics rush to the HRD ministry for intervention
in their favourite cause are too numerous to list. We invited the politicians
in, and rue it only when the game does not go in our favour.
The third issue is the place of caste in higher education.
Caste, as India’s original sin, still casts a shadow on almost every debate. It
is still a poison that vitiates most intellectual life. The upper castes are,
with justification, an object of suspicion. Their credibility on creating an
inclusive education system is roughly zero. But post OBC reservations, the moral
imprimatur of India’s reservation policy has also diminished. Dalits have an
overwhelming claim to reservations. But instead of placing that reservation in
an ethical framework centred on discrimination and the need to treat people
with decency, the indiscriminate expansion of reservations turned higher
education into a virtual power grab. Reservation could no longer be articulated
as an ethical requirement; rather, it was seen as a manifestation of organised
power.
And as the nature of that electoral and organised power shifts,
different groups will assert themselves, and use state power whenever they have
access. Clearly, in Tamil Nadu, anti-Periyar forces think this is a moment for
them. But when identity and interest so deeply colonise reason, every move will
be seen, by one party or the other, as threatening war. It is important not to
render the operations of caste hierarchy invisible under a cloak of anonymity.
But an intellectual culture that reinforces the alignment of identity and
reason will suffocate any prospect of a meaningful dialogue.
Professors like to think of universities as protected spaces
that preserve the possibility of dissent. They should be such spaces, where
every thought can be debated. But there are two issues about dissent. First,
who draws these boundaries? India’s liberal left has been plagued by the
problem that it did not see the university in terms of an open space with a
free flow of ideas. It always thought of the university as being about social
engineering rather than cultivation of the intellect.
The second issue is a
paradox. Oddly enough, there is often more freedom to debate when the
consequences of the debate are relatively trivial. In Western universities, it
is seemingly easy to discuss anything, partly because there are no political
stakes. In India, we have the opposite challenge: almost everything, any
figure, any icon, is politically charged, with immediate material consequences
for society. No social science or humanities discussion here is merely
academic.
So people find it harder to draw the line between protest and dissent, argument and threat,
dialogue and disorder, critique and hatred. In an odd way, we don’t want to
debate ideas because we understand their power more. It is a crying shame that
the establishment did not engage with Ambedkar and Periyar. But it was also a
back-handed compliment in that it knew what the consequences of real
engagement would be. In India, therefore, saying that universities
are spaces of dissent is not going to be enough; it will take a more
imaginative pedagogy to negotiate the hyper-politicisation of ideas.
There are other issues as well. Does a single-minded focus
on technical education and exams reduce our ability to handle the larger social
dialogue that is at stake in our universities? Ironically, of all the IITs, IIT
Madras had taken impressive strides in fostering the social sciences. But the
way it has handled this controversy does not bring it credit. It has done a
deep injustice to its students, particularly those in the Ambedkar-Periyar
Study Circle. It has sent out a grim reminder that the academic establishment
is unlikely to stand up for liberal values, administrative independence and
plain common sense.
see also
The Broken Middle (on the 30th anniversary of 1984)
