Bonsai Universities & Ripped Jeans | Midweek Matters​ | Parakala Prabhakar​ (4)

Developments in the privately funded Ashoka University and the publicly funded Universities BHU, JNU and Jamia are disconcerting. Two eminent academics quit Ashoka. Prof Pratap Bhanu Mehta and Dr Arvind Subramanian. The former was eased out because the university’s founders felt that his writings, critical of the government, were a liability to the institution. The latter quit in solidarity of the eased out Professor. BHU had invited the wives of three rich business tycoons to be visiting professors in their social sciences faculty. Uttarakhand CM made an ugly remark about women wearing ripped jeans. Last year goons armed with sticks and rods created mayhem in JNU. Jamia students were brutally beaten up. This shows that the current political environment is intolerant of dissent, critical thinking, and any attempts to challenge the smugness in society. There is a black attempt to reorient our cultural values. Instead of addressing the low quality of teaching, research and publications of our institutions of higher education, the establishment is exerting to ease out academics, invite corporates as visiting faculty and stifling dissenting voices in the universities. 

In this context, the defiance of Prof Pratap Bhanu Mehta, and Dr Arvind Subramanian is remarkable. We don’t need Bonsai universities; instead we should have a vibrant, questioning, untamed institutions of higher learning to make ours a $5 trillion economy and make Bharat a Viswa Guru.