Nobel laureate steps down from Nalanda after government run-in

As Nobel laureate Amartya Sen last week stepped down as chancellor of the new Nalanda University, which is being revived on the site of the ancient institution in Bihar state, he slammed the government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for “extraordinarily large” interference in Nalanda and other higher education institutions in the country, accusing the government of jeopardising academic autonomy.

In an outspoken critique of the Indian government to be published next month in the New York Review of Books and an equally outspoken interview in the Times of India newspaper last week, breaking months of public silence on the matter, Sen admitted relations had become troubled between the Bharatiya Janata Party or BJP-led government elected in May 2014 and the governing board of Nalanda University, which seeks to erect a new university on the site of a fifth century institution with financial support from a number of Asian governments and India’s foreign ministry.

“I was certainly ousted from Nalanda,” he told the Times of India. But added it was not a “one-off incident”.

“Nothing on this scale of interference has happened before. Every institution where the government has a formal role is being converted into where the government has a substantive role," he said in the interview.

The winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics said in a forthcoming essay for the New York Review of Books he was “not entirely surprised to find that the new government opposed my continuing as chancellor of Nalanda University”.

During elections last year Sen had openly criticised the ruling BJP party and Modi himself for their anti-secular stance, and the rift has proved hard to heal with amid accusations from several politicians in Bihar’s ousted provincial government that Sen was “hounded out” by the new central government.

The previous provincial government of Bihar, where the revived university is situated, strongly backed the university project which it hoped would bring more economic and social development to one of the country’s most backward states.

Stepping down

Sen stepped down as chancellor of the university on 17 July to be replaced by Singapore’s former foreign minister George Yeo, who has been involved in the project from very early on.

Sen said he would not continue, after initially resisting attempts by the Modi government to remove him.

The government tried “to remove me as chancellor, overruling a unanimous decision of Nalanda’s governing board [in January 2015] that I should continue”, he writes for the New York Review of Books.

“While I appreciate the unanimous support [from the Nalanda board], it soon became clear to me that the tension between the government and the governing board of Nalanda over my continuing as chancellor was proving to be a barrier to the work of rebuilding the school. It also became obvious that the government’s hostility would prevent me from being an effective leader.”

Sen subsequently informed the board that he would not accept reappointment when his present term ends this month.

“It is however extremely important to make sure that the academic independence of Nalanda under the new chancellor is respected. The university must not be subjected to partisan political pressure,” he writes.

“Yeo has just accepted the position with the assurance that he will have the independence that will be required for running the university,” Sen writes without saying how that independence will be guaranteed.

Academic independence

However, the larger issue concerns the academic independence of institutions of higher learning, Sen writes.

Some of his criticisms of the government outlined in a five-page letter to the Nalanda governing board in January had previously been leaked to newspapers, when he revealed the government did not want him to continue as chancellor. He now insists he is standing down on principle.

“While it is certainly true that the Modi government is not pleased with the political positions I have taken, the confrontation is ultimately not about personalities. It is about the principles governing public institutions, particularly the importance of academic independence,” Sen writes.

But perhaps more damning, he notes that the government’s pressures on Nalanda are part of a “general pattern of interference in academic leadership across the country”. He points to a number of examples where the present government has interfered with leadership appointments at a number of institutions.

“It is hard not to conclude that the government has difficulty in appreciating the distinction between an autonomous institution supported by the government, using state resources, and an institution under the direct command of the government currently in office,” Sen writes.

“The new government and its allies have been active in trying to impose their own views on many academic institutions, and Nalanda’s academic independence has been under considerable threat over the last year.”

Delays

In addition, Sen said, “the government tried suddenly, without any consultation with the governing board, to make radical changes” in the board’s membership, a move that did not work because the proposed changes violated provisions of the Nalanda University Act passed by the Indian parliament in 2010.

The Indian foreign ministry has denied any intention to remove Sen or defer the renewal of his tenure. But there have been behind-the-scenes grumbling within government about ‘non-resident Indians’ such as Sen and other overseas members of the Nalanda board being involved in such high-profile government-funded projects.

The provincial government of Bihar had backed Sen, but post-election political turmoil in the state, when the previous Bihar government was ousted, made it difficult to assert authority in Sen’s favour in the matter, sources said.