It is time to resist the assault on academic freedom, says Ashwani Kumar

Former Union Law Minister Ashwani Kumar in a statement voicing anguish at the manner in which noted public intellectual Pratap Bhanu Mehta was forced to resign from Ashoka University, has called upon Indian intellectuals to protest the attack on academic freedom.

The text of the statement is as follows:

“The apparently forced resignation of Pratap Bhanu Mehta as Professor at the Ashoka University and one of the county’s foremost public intellectuals has confirmed yet again that ours is a hollowed democracy. We have been rudely reminded that freedom of thought even in the most liberal of academic institutions is welcome only as long as it is not a “political liability —” a contradiction in terms .

The trustees of the premier educational institution are clearly the principal villains, in not standing up to those who wanted Mehta to pay the price for his intellectual integrity . They have forfeited their claim as trustees of the institution by acquiescing in the project to tame informed voices of dissent. The attack on academic freedoms is the most pernicious of devices to stifle opinion and to promote intolerance in the battle of ideas thereby robbing democracy of its defining distinction.

This is the moment for academia and public intellectuals to collectively fight for their space as keepers of national conscience and to remind the powers that be, that the power of their pen will not be captive to the lure of wealth or to the brute power of a muscular State.

This is a time to act and assert our collective conscience in defense of our cherished values.

I appeal to all, particularly to thinkers and public intellectuals not to be silenced into submission in this moment of the test.