An Open Letter to Arun Shourie on the Sacking of the Indian Statistical Institute Director
Dear Dr. Shourie,
We, the undersigned, are all alumni of the Indian
Statistical Institute spanning the period 1967-2009. We are confident that a
very large number of ISI alumni share our concerns.
Scattered all over the globe, we typically do not have the
time to keep track of what is happening at ISI on a day-to-day basis, even
though for each of us ISI remains the home where we grew up.
Naturally, it came as a bolt from the blue for us to learn
that the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI) issued an order (I-12011/1/2015-ISI) on June 10, 2015 “in
exercise of Sections 11 and 12 of the ISI Act, 1959,” divesting Prof Bimal Roy
of “all administrative, financial and other powers and duties of Director, ISI,
with effect from the afternoon of June 10, 2015.”
We were, to quote a fellow
ISI alumnus, aghast, appalled, and flabbergasted to hear the
allegations of “financial and administrative irregularities”against Prof Roy,
whom we all have been privileged to know for, in some cases, over 40 years.
Since that fateful day, we have spoken to a number of fellow
ISI alumni who are still at ISI, including individuals who are members of the
ISI Council and were present at the extremely controversial Council meeting
held in Bangalore on April 23, 2015.
We fully understand that what we have
heard are often personal opinions intermingled with facts, and in spite of our
close bonds with these individuals, we have not always passively accepted what
they have said at face value. That said, based on these conversations, we have
every reason to apprehend that the turn of events at ISI between April 23 and
June 10 did not serve the best interests of the Institute.
We would, therefore, appreciate it if you could answer the
questions and address the concerns listed below in a forthright manner, a
manner befitting the stature of “a concerned citizen [who has] employ[ed] his
pen as an effective adversary of corruption, inequality, and injustice” and
whose “dedication to the truth has won admiration throughout the political
spectrum”, to quote from your Magsaysay Award citation and from Martha Nussbaum,
respectively.
Let us start with the first set of questions:
Is it true that the Selection Committee, appointed by the
ISI Council and chaired by you, while considering the applications received for
the position of Director (with effect from August 1, 2015), called Prof Roy
(and five others) for an interaction that was held at Pune on April 19, 2015?
Is it true that at the meeting on April 23 you remarked that
if other candidates were just not up to the mark, the Institute would continue
to avail of the services of Prof Roy?
If the answers to the preceding two questions are yes, will
we be incorrect in concluding that, as of April 23, you were not aware of the
various “financial and administrative irregularities which show the direct or
supervisory responsibilities for acts of omission or commission” on the part of
Prof Roy, as mentioned in the June 10 order dismissing him?
In that case, won’t you agree that your lack of awareness of
such grave matters in spite of being ISI Council Chairman is a matter of very
serious concern?
We understand that the April 23 meeting had the following
item on its agenda:
“To consider (emphasis added) the report
of the Selection Committee constituted by the Council for appointment of the
Director of the Institute for a period of five years w.e.f. August 1, 2015.” We
would like to know the nature and the final outcome of the deliberations of the
ISI Council on that agenda item.
Is it not true that during the discussion on the above
agenda item, relating to the appointment of the Director, the representative of
the non-scientific workers of ISI to the Council objected to the Council
accepting the recommendation of the Selection Committee to appoint Prof
Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay to the post of Director of ISI effective August 1,
2015?
To that end, we have the following very important question
to ask:
Did the ISI Council, at the meeting on April 23, 2015, move
and pass a resolution accepting the recommendation of the Selection Committee
to appoint Prof Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay as the Director of ISI with effect
from August 1, 2015, as required under the bye-laws
of ISI, which clearly states that “The appointment of the Director shall
be made by the Council (emphasis added) on the recommendation made by
a Selection Committee?”
We ask this because, to the best of our knowledge, earlier,
at the same Council meeting on April 23, when an objection was raised relating
to the appointment of an ISI Centre Head, you, as the Chairman, adopted the
admirably correct democratic practice of seeking a majority vote in the Council
to resolve the dilemma and validate the appointment.
If the answer to the above question is YES, would you please
tell us how many Council members were in attendance during the meeting, how
many voted in favor of or against the motion and how many abstained from
voting?
If, however, the answer to the above question is NO, and
yet the minutes of the meeting asserted otherwise, would you not agree
that the purported “minutes” were factually incorrect and Prof Roy did no wrong
in refusing to authenticate these minutes, as has been widely reported in the
media?
Irrespective of the answer to the above question, would you
please review the provisions of the ISI Act quoted in the order for us and
assure us that by invoking its emergency provisions to divest Prof Roy of his
powers and duties without enlightening him of the charges against him and
giving him the opportunity to respond to these charges, the MOSPI violated
neither the letter nor the spirit of the law?
Sir, we are extremely concerned that unless you take
proactive steps to diffuse the current crisis, it will end up in the courts and
cause avoidable disruption to the functioning of ISI. In the long run,
litigation will also cause lasting damage to the fabric of camaraderie that,
consistent with our mantra of ‘Unity in Diversity’, has been the quintessential
virtue of ISI.
We urge you, therefore, to, please uphold the principles of
transparency, collegiality, and shared governance. Please work with the MOSPI
to secure the immediate repeal of the order of June 10, 2015, and restore “all
administrative, financial and other powers and duties of Director, ISI,” to
Prof Roy. Please take the recommendation of the Selection Committee back to the
ISI Council (even if you think the Council has already accepted that
recommendation) and let the majority opinion manifest itself freely in full public
view.
Please understand that even if the ISI Council does not
accept the recommendation of the Selection Committee, you will lose nothing but
gain a lot – we, and countless others, will go back to admiring you for your
“dedication to the truth.”
We can guarantee you that if the ISI Council resolves to
accept the recommendation of the Selection Committee, even if by the thinnest
possible margin of one vote, everyone will line up behind Prof. Roy to heartily
welcome Prof Bandyopadhyay to the Director’s Office on the afternoon of July
31, 2015.
Sir, the well at ISI has been severely poisoned; you, and
only you, can start the process of cleaning it up. Please do it for yourself,
for us, for ISI, and for India, and please do so now.
Respectfully,
Sajal Lahiri, Vandeever Chair, Department of Economics,
Southern Illinois University, USA
Sambasivan Amarnath, Shri Advisors LLC, Dayton, USA
Prasad Nanisetty, Princeton, USA
Tapen Sinha, Division of Actuarial Science, Mathematics and Statistics Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico
Srinivas Bhogle, Director, TEOCO Software Pvt. Ltd., Bengaluru
Atul Jain, Chairman and CEO, TEOCO Software Pvt. Ltd., Fairfax, USA
Rabi Ghoshdastidar, Tampa, USA
Arusharka Sen, Quebec, Canada
Suman Majumdar, Department of Statistics, University of Connecticut, USA
Subhashis Raychaudhuri, Newtown, USA
Tarun Dan, Slingerlands, USA
Nilim Roy, Princeton, USA
Gautam Aitch, Albany, USA
Ramanuj Majumdar, Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta
Arindam Sengupta, Department of Statistics, University of Calcutta
Subrata Kundu, Department of Statistics, George Washington University, USA
Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya, Kolkata
Bhaskar Sengupta, Albany, USA
Indranil Chakraborty, Department of Economics, National University of Singapore
Anurag Banerjee, Durham University Business School, UK
Kalpataru Barman, University of California at Berkeley, USA
Pradipta Sarkar, Proctor & Gamble, Singapore
Soumyajit Biswas, Dublin, Ireland
Ayan Sen, Managing Director, Millennium Capital Management, Singapore
Sumanta Basu, Department of Statistics, University of California at Berkeley, USA
Jyotishka Datta, Department of Statistical Science, Duke University, USA
Srijan Sengupta, Department of Statistics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
Sambasivan Amarnath, Shri Advisors LLC, Dayton, USA
Prasad Nanisetty, Princeton, USA
Tapen Sinha, Division of Actuarial Science, Mathematics and Statistics Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico
Srinivas Bhogle, Director, TEOCO Software Pvt. Ltd., Bengaluru
Atul Jain, Chairman and CEO, TEOCO Software Pvt. Ltd., Fairfax, USA
Rabi Ghoshdastidar, Tampa, USA
Arusharka Sen, Quebec, Canada
Suman Majumdar, Department of Statistics, University of Connecticut, USA
Subhashis Raychaudhuri, Newtown, USA
Tarun Dan, Slingerlands, USA
Nilim Roy, Princeton, USA
Gautam Aitch, Albany, USA
Ramanuj Majumdar, Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta
Arindam Sengupta, Department of Statistics, University of Calcutta
Subrata Kundu, Department of Statistics, George Washington University, USA
Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya, Kolkata
Bhaskar Sengupta, Albany, USA
Indranil Chakraborty, Department of Economics, National University of Singapore
Anurag Banerjee, Durham University Business School, UK
Kalpataru Barman, University of California at Berkeley, USA
Pradipta Sarkar, Proctor & Gamble, Singapore
Soumyajit Biswas, Dublin, Ireland
Ayan Sen, Managing Director, Millennium Capital Management, Singapore
Sumanta Basu, Department of Statistics, University of California at Berkeley, USA
Jyotishka Datta, Department of Statistical Science, Duke University, USA
Srijan Sengupta, Department of Statistics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
