Sonipat, New Delhi: Ashoka University has had a long month. It just refuses to stay off the headlines. What began as a Twitter storm over an un-peer reviewed and unpublished research paper has ballooned into a deep, soul-searching ‘Who Are We’ moment for the nine-year-old university.
At the nucleus of all the unravelling is a funders-vs-faculty battle in a liberal arts university that has been called Haryana’s Harvard and the rich person’s JNU.
And there is no secrecy to the fight either. All of it has been unfolding, breathlessly, in full public glare. Assistant professor Sabyasachi Das tweets a link to his working paper on 2019 Lok Sabha election results; the university distances itself from it; the professor quits; faculty circles the wagon and cries shrinking academic freedom; an Intelligence Bureau team pays a visit to the campus; a founder vents on Twitter; and a data centre disbands.
But the saga is nowhere near over.
In less than a decade, Ashoka University has experienced a seismic churn, characterised by disquiet, direction, academic freedom, and a derailed vision.
“Too much of the wrong type of politics is capable of destroying a university. At Ashoka, if we get that brand of politics, every donor will be out of the door. That’s the kind of politics we don’t need at Ashoka.”
— Sanjeev Bikhchandani, a founder and trustee at Ashoka University
Like all start-ups tend to be, the core founders of Ashoka have always been “hands-on”. It was never light-touch management. They didn’t recede into the background after donating money. But today, the foothold of the university’s governing body is increasing, according to professors and research scholars.
“Whenever a crisis or a controversy happened, they tended to intervene in the mode they knew best, which is to take control. That’s where the contradiction with academic freedom becomes glaring,” said a former professor.
Also read: Ashoka University’s real issue is the clash between ‘suits’ that fund and ‘boots’ that run it
A dream materialised
The intent was honourable.
Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Hooda was dreaming to set up a Rajiv Gandhi Education City. Around the same time, Naukri.com founder Sanjeev Bikhchandani and hedge fund billionaire Ashish Dhawan met at The Oberoi in Delhi in 2007 where they proposed the idea of setting up a university. Bikhchandani’s fire was fuelled by the decline in academic standards at St Stephen’s and the need for a new centre of excellence in liberal arts and pure sciences.
Dhawan mobilised two sets of like-minded people: Pramath Sinha, the founding dean of ISB, and a group of IIT Delhi Alumni, who wanted to create a new-age technology university.
Approvals came on fast track. Haryana assembly passed a law in record time to create the sprawling 25-acre campus of Ashoka University in the heart of rural Sonipat. It is to date India’s largest collective philanthropy project.
So far, around Rs 2,000 crore has been invested. Over time, the half-a-dozen core founders’ group expanded; now, there are over 150 donors, each armed with a voice and a veto over the affairs of the university.
80 per cent of donors are right-wing or supporters of the current government
The founders quickly learned that a liberal arts university—anywhere in the world—tends to be a left-of-centre creature that thrives on and demands ever-expanding autonomy, agency, and activism. And a private university that seeks to become a site of political questioning and activism in Narendra Modi’s new India is a high stakes game. Not when even the enfant terrible JNU has been much tamed.
Over the past few weeks, Bikhchandani has been vocal on X (formerly Twitter), distinguishing between ‘left-liberal’ individuals at the university, and the university itself, saying that “it must guard against becoming an ideological ghetto.”
There is a brand of politics associated with public institutions such as DU, JNU, or Jadavpur University. And it is this that the founders want to steer clear of.
“Too much of the wrong type of politics is capable of destroying a university. At Ashoka, if we do get that brand of politics, I can say with certainty that every donor will be out of the door. That’s the kind of politics we don’t need at Ashoka,” Bikhchandani told ThePrint, referring to West Bengal’s student politics in the 1960s and Patna University in the ’70s.
And so, perhaps on cue, Ashoka university is now increasingly pivoting toward ‘safer’ STEM and MBA courses that tend to be less cranky than humanities. But the founders insist this isn’t a mid-course correction: it was always part of the plan.
Also read: Ashoka University’s real issue is the clash between ‘suits’ that fund and ‘boots’ that run it
Ashoka’s freedom—with T&C
The troubles, however, did not begin with Sabyasachi Das’ July paper provocatively titled ‘Democratic Backsliding in the World’s Largest Democracy’. The fault lines were visible for much longer.
In many ways, it is a clash of cultures—one that demands brand loyalty and discipline, and another that thrives on asking inconvenient questions. Some Ashoka funders expect that expensive private sector salaries should bring about a different kind of work style and behaviour.
“Ashoka faculty members are oblivious to the fact that there are donors with a different worldview. They think the money has just fallen from heaven.”
— an insider of Ashoka University
Ashoka created waves across universities because it was a congregation of the biggest names in academia with fancy salaries. Cutting-edge courses on caste and gender theory made the future seem bright. Pratap Bhanu Mehta’s appointment as Vice-Chancellor brought unparalleled liberal credentials. But his anti-government columnist persona began to grate, making his association with the university untenable. In 2021, he was ousted. Former Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian, a founding director and professor of economics, left in solidarity.
The flare-up over Sabyasachi Das’ paper has deepened the fault lines once again.
Some say that there was no diversity in the hirings, creating a liberal and left echo chamber over time. A lot went on under the banner of academic freedom. The tightrope the university was walking on began to slack.
The founders played a role in the initial rounds of hiring, after which the process was spread across departments. Each department hires its own faculty, with the recruits by and large aligned to their ideologies. A number of scholars came from Delhi University, Centre for Policy Research (a think tank in the crosshairs of the Modi government), and JNU. Recently, a tweet carrying photographs of the entire philosophy faculty went viral. Except for department head Kranti Saran, all were foreign nationals.
An Ashoka insider alluded to subtle practices employed to exclude right-wing academics. It was not necessarily deliberate, but the interviewer’s ideological beliefs are clear.
“If you say no to left-of-centre faculty, you’re not going to get good faculty,” said a former professor.
When a former professor approached BJP members and ministers for a book, many declined to speak with him, because he was a professor at Ashoka University.
At the same time, there exists a reciprocal relationship between faculty members and donors. Both failed to understand this tethered relationship.
“The singular problem in Ashoka is that faculty members are oblivious to the fact that there are donors who have a different worldview. They think the money has just fallen from heaven,” an insider said, adding that as per an estimate, 80 per cent of donors are right-wing or supporters of the current government.
The bottom line, he added, is this: it’s all well and good to expect and have academic freedom, but faculty members are also employees being handsomely compensated for their teaching and research.
One argument on Ashoka is that what’s transpiring at the university is symptomatic of a larger malaise, spread across Indian university campuses. “Let’s be honest, there’s more academic freedom at Ashoka than there is in most universities at regular times,” a former professor with the political science department said.
But the founders are becoming increasingly clear in their signalling. There is space for politics at Ashoka, but a line must be toed.
“While I admire Bhagat Singh, as a parent do I want my son to go to the gallows at the age of 22? I think most Ashoka parents will be relieved with this assessment of the University. Ashoka is boring – thank god,” one of Bikchandani’s tweets on X read, drawing reference to an article that critiqued Ashoka’s inability to produce young, firebrand politicians.
Also read: No one is asking the right questions about Pratap Bhanu Mehta’s ouster from Ashoka University
Right balance, wrong tag
Neither the funders nor the faculty were artful dodgers—an essential trait for survival in today’s polarised India.
Ashoka did try to project an unapologetic centrism by inviting Subramanian Swamy for a guest lecture in 2017, for a talk titled ‘Five Dimensions of the Ideology of the Right’, giving its students a taste of diversity. But Ashoka University just couldn’t shake its now notorious tag—JNU of the private sector. It wasn’t in Delhi, so it wasn’t under the daily, real time radar like JNU or DU were. But the image of being left and liberal at heart stuck.
Ashoka’s courses frequently include teaching and readings by the foes of the right. One of its foundation courses, taught by visiting professor Ananya Vajpayee, includes readings from historian Romila Thapar, novelist Arundhati Roy, and social theorist Ashis Nandy—whose work is no longer fashionable in the current climate.
When a former professor approached BJP members and ministers for a book, many declined to speak with him, because he was a professor at Ashoka University.
On the other extreme, the university wasn’t ‘left enough’ for some students. It reeked of corporate culture.
Student protests at Ashoka were never taken seriously. “For me, the protests were very much on the surface. No one was willing to lose anything. The thrust was always on placements, not anything else,” said a former student who graduated from the Young India Fellowship, the institution’s original flagship programme, which began in 2011, three years prior to the UG degree.
Certain lines also needed to be toed within the classroom and the space for uncomfortable politics was limited. AF Mathews, a sociologist whose primary focus was caste, punctured the idea of India as a ‘beautiful country’—by virtue of delving into caste. His classes were popular, but a few students complained, and Professor Mathews wasn’t invited again.
Ashoka has also added more management courses into the mix, “because about 60 per cent of students want private sector jobs,” according to a funder.
The last batch of students he taught reportedly wrote a letter calling for his return, but the final decision was, of course, in the hands of the institution.
The right was also irked when history professor Aparna Vaidik taught a course that contained a graphic retelling of Gulamgiri, Jyotiba Phule’s seminal text. The graphic novel was published by anti-caste publisher, Navayana books. Francois Gautier, a staunch proponent of “indic” narratives, lambasted the university—calling the book “hate speech.” On Facebook, the 75-year-old asked his followers to “take a stand” against the teaching of “anti-hindu” and “anti-brahmin” propaganda.
In 2016, 88 members of the Ashoka community signed a petition condemning “the violence perpetrated by the Indian state in Kashmir.” Among other things, they asked for a plebiscite to be held in the state. The matter was picked up by 14 newspapers in Pakistan, fuelling the controversy. “We were quite alarmed when this petition happened. We issued a statement saying this has nothing to do with us and we condemn it. It’s freedom of speech. But I don’t see why we should be bound to support every statement, or every action that an individual makes at the university,” said a funder.
The university authorities issued their first statement distancing themselves from the beliefs of students and faculty members. The debacle ended with the resignation of mathematics professor Rajendaran Narayanan, who spoke about the “highhanded and undemocratic” ways of the governing body in his resignation letter.
The final crescendo was the very public ousting of Pratap Bhanu Mehta, who said he was described as a “political liability” by the founders. They also “suggested” his intellectual activities could no longer be protected within the purview of the university.
Faculty members, as was the case with Narayanan and Das, are not fired. Instead, conditions are created for them to resign on their own. “They bank on the principles of the faculty, knowing that the outcome would be their resignation,” a former professor said. “The interference is blatant.”
Despite the tug of war between faculty and the governing body, each member constantly tested how far they could go across the line in the sand.
The funders also anticipated some kind of a PR crisis ahead. A former administrative employee they had to battle two popular perceptions about the university: leftist activities and elitism. They began posting content about under-privileged students that get scholarships at Ashoka University.
In 2019, a lecture by an RSS member was held. A 2020 report by Ashoka’s student newspaper, The Edict, referred to Moksh, a more right-leaning student political party, which no longer exists. Five months ago, according to a Linkedin post by an Ashoka student, a talk was held by BJP foreign affairs incharge Vijay Chauthaiwala. All students were not invited, and only sanctioned questions could be asked, said an alumnus.
So, when founder Bikhchandani posted long tweets on X last week, some were not entirely surprised, but their WhatsApp groups still buzzed furiously with reactions.
“It’s really demeaning to students and faculty, disregarding academic work that’s been recognised at so many levels, to say that students have no role in how their university is governed and [that they] should stick to things within their purview [like substance abuse] on campus, when we choose to attend a university based on the ideas and values they promote,” said a former student. Another said they were confused by the haphazard manner in which the institution was conducting itself.
Some of the coverage by Ashoka’s student newspaper, The Edict, has been scathing. “Until the university seeks out administrators who aren’t intent on turning its classrooms into an assembly line, Ashoka cannot claim to be a pioneer of higher education in India,” reads a guest post by an alumnus.
Also read: With new campus & IIT collaboration, ‘liberal-arts hub’ Ashoka University eyes big science push
Being liberal about science
The Ashoka website and social media pages are swarming with content highlighting the university’s achievements, mostly science-related. The ‘in the media’ page has five articles with comments from Vice-Chancellor Somak Raychaudhury on the Chandrayaan-3 landing. Raychaudhury is an eminent astrophysicist, and was previously director of the Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics in Pune.
It is a marked change from the academic profile of its previous three Vice-Chancellors: Rudrangshu Mukherjee, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, and Malabika Sarkar. Yet, it is not deliberate. “We look for the right person for the job, never mind what discipline the person is from. A great academic leader is a great academic leader,” said Bikhchandani.
The university’s next public lecture is on 26 October. Titled ‘Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Cosmic Web,’ it will be conducted by Varun Sahani, an emeritus professor at the astronomy centre in Pune. On X, a webinar seeking to connect school students with scientists has been posted about multiple times. This is further punctuated by interviews of Dr Raychaudhury on the Chandrayaan-3 landing. In 2022, a Scientific Advisory Council was established, headed by K Vijayraghavan, former principal scientific advisor to the government of India.
The expansion into sciences was always on the cards. “It was always our plan to be a multi-disciplinary university,” said Bikhchandani. First, the humanities and the social sciences, then science, and now entrepreneurship and management. But some find the timing to be too pretty. “There is a slow rebranding of the university into a strong science research university, rather than a liberal teaching institution in Haryana,” said a former professor. “That means passive investment into scientific thinking. But that’s not the only reason, the government will be pleased with people in labs working on solving problems.”
In 2017, while science courses were offered at Ashoka, the physics department had “only two very good professors,” said a student who ultimately graduated with a degree in English. Now, a look at the website attests to the contrary.
Ashoka has also added more management courses into the mix, “because about 60 per cent of students want private sector jobs,” according to a funder.
The most recent signifier of changing academic tides at Ashoka is the dissolution of the Trivedi Centre for Political Data. Helmed by former assistant professor Gilles Vernier, its funding was withdrawn. TCPD, according to its website, disseminates “open-access scientifically collected and treated political data.” It was funded by entrepreneur Ashok Trivedi and its research was conducted through grants.
According to The Edict, the scientific board of TCPD wrote to the Vice Chancellor on 28 August, asking for information about the centre’s future. They were informed that there were plans to “fold” TCPD into a larger data centre. There was no consultation beyond that.
In June this year, TCPD’s election data repository, Lok Dhaba dataset, won an award given by the American Political Science Association. The university recently announced that the TCPD was being reabsorbed into the freshly minted Center for Data Sciences and Analytics. Sources implied the new TCPD would be a shadow of its former self, as the earlier repository was built on a social sciences foundation.
About a year and half ago, in his book The New BJP: Modi and the Making of the World’s Largest Political Party, political scientist and journalist Nalin Mehta claimed he had found several errors in TCPD’s caste data. The data looked at the BJP with regard to its OBC members. Verniers called the last decade “the return of the savarnas,” seemingly faulting the party. In turn, Mehta said his book had found “significant flaws” in the data. He published two pieces in News18 countering TCPD’s findings.
In response, political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot and Verniers published a rejoinder, calling the BJP and caste “old wine in a new bottle.” While the duo didn’t say they were immune to errors, what they argued was that the interpretation of data differed.
Mehta then wrote an article stating five reasons why Jaffrelot and Verniers were wrong.
Also read: What institutions like Ashoka University forget when hiring a Pratap Bhanu Mehta
Mecca of money for academics
Ashoka University today is at an inflection point. The university’s funding under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) is up for renewal, and last month two members of the Intelligence Bureau visited the campus and spoke to some students. They wanted to meet Das.
Even if Ashoka doesn’t receive foreign funding, it won’t be fatal. “We’ll be fine,” said a funder. But they don’t want it to come to that; it’s a signal they can do without right now.
Statements by the university and social media posts by a co-founder indicate that something is simmering, a change is imminent but it is unlikely to be smooth. There may be more exits, outcries and bloodletting.
Some see it as a battle cry, others as a cry for help.
“This is a show of strength by the founders. But they’ll have to change the character of its base as it currently stands. It’s not easy to do that,” said a former professor. “The tweets are a sign of helplessness.”
“Late-career” academics were given administrative positions, which a former professor credited as ‘growing bureaucracy’ at Ashoka. At odds as the founders and faculty may be, the professor admitted that Ashoka was facing a herculean challenge: of trying to build a “liberal university in a growingly illiberal context.”
An arduous innings lies ahead for Ashoka, with the inherent, out-in-the-open contradictions ready to bog it down at every turn.
“Private universities are not the Mecca for academic freedom. They are the Mecca of good money for academics,” said a leading academic, once associated with the Ashoka University.
(Edited by Prashant)