Surrender of Gujarat Vidyapith, an institution of higher studies established by MK Gandhi in 1920, is a story of one more institution losing its spine and succumbing to the pressure of the ruling dispensation. Acharya Devvrat, the governor of Gujarat, will become the 12th Chancellor of Gujarat Vidyapith. But he will be the first to hold the position with a thin majority of 13 to 9 in the Governing Council. Two members abstained from voting.
It is noteworthy that all previous appointments of Chancellors in the 102-year-long history of Vidyapith were unanimous and all of them were Gandhians or Gandhijans, as some prefer to call themselves. The first Chancellor was Gandhi himself—from 1920 to his assassination in 1948. Current Chancellor and Magsaysay Award recipient Ela Bhatt, 89, is the founder of the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA). Acharya Devvrat will replace her because she resigned citing health concerns.
Devvrat was the principal of a Kurukshetra-based gurukul, run by Arya Pratinidhi Sabha, for 34 years. When he was appointed the Governor of Himachal Pradesh in 2015, The Tribune announced his appointment with the headline “Ramdev follower Acharya Dev Vrat is HP Governor.” Devvrat was quoted as saying, “He [Ramdev] has always been a guide and his blessings are with me.” He felt that “it was the result of my hard work [as a principal of the Gurukul] that has given me this opportunity [of Governorship].”
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Kul Nayak of Gujarat Vidyapith
The circumstances and chronology of events that led to the appointment of a “Ramdev follower” and the first non-Gandhian Chancellor at Gujarat Vidyapith are yet another blow to the remaining Gandhian symbols. The worst part was how the majority of members of the present Governing Council under the leadership of Vice Chancellor Dr Rajendra Khimani sided with the government in this ‘operation’.
Khimani is a controversial figure. Having functioned as the Registrar of the Vidyapith (Kul Sachiv, according to Vidyapith’s nomenclature) from 2004 to 2019, he became the Vice-Chancellor (Kul Nayak) in 2021 even as charges of lapses in administrative and financial functioning were pending against him. Two separate University Grants Commission (UGC) committees reported against the procedural lapse in his appointment as the VC and in his functioning as Registrar. A resolution passed in UGC’s 554th meeting on 25 November 2021, directed the Chancellor of Gujarat Vidyapith to remove Khimani as VC with immediate effect.
Khimani went to Gujarat High Court and secured temporarily relief. The court directed UGC to take no coercive steps against him till further orders, on 22 March 2022. In the meantime, Union Home Minister Amit Shah was seen as the chief guest at a function hosted by Khimani at Kochrab Ashram on 13 March 2022. It was to flag off a bicycle rally of two teachers and 10 students of the Gujarat Vidyapith at Randheja village. Tongues started wagging at the way Khimani was paying respect to Amit Shah, an unusual choice as a chief guest on the 92nd anniversary of Gandhi’s historical Salt March.
Later, Khimani and two trustees of the Governing Council met Amit Shah in Delhi, apparently to secure the release of the UGC grant. Vidyapith had some issues of non-compliance and the grant issues were there during the term of the previous VC. After the said meeting, the grant was released. But it is not known what exactly transpired between Khimani and Shah thereafter.
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Orders from “above”
A member of the Governing Council on the condition of anonymity told me that they were told to accept the pending resignation of current Chancellor Ela Bhatt. Vidyapith proposed some named for the post of VC, but they were summarily rejected. The name of Om Prakash Kohli, former Governor of Gujrat, came from “above”. After Kohli refused to accept the post due to his ripe age. The name of Acharya Devvrat was sent with the message, “Accept the name or face the consequences,” as one of the members of the Governing Council told me on the condition of anonymity.
In the meantime, the High Court delivered the final judgment on Khimani’s plea on 22 September 2022. It directed the council pass appropriate orders within eight weeks based on both the UGC reports. The “appropriate orders” meant removal of Khimani. In an oral remark, the Court said, “Within my heart, I’m giving them the time of eight weeks because I have serious doubt whether the Vidyapith (will do it).”
Khimani didn’t resign even after such an indictive order and continued to be at the helm of the institution. He also attended the meeting on 4 October in which the voting took place. Nine members of the Governing Councils, including two former VCs, Dr Anamik Shah and Dr Sudarshan Iyengar, voted against the resolution to appoint Acharya Devvrat as the new Chancellor. But it should be clear that not just two but all opposing members lacked the unity, urgency, and strategy to make fierce efforts to prevent the appointment of the first non-Gandhian Chancellor. They failed to take the issue outside the walls of Vidyapith. They wasted seven precious days before Khimani went to invite Acharya Devvrat officially on 12 October 2022. The opposing Governing Council members neither talked to the press nor did they try to channelise the sentiments of those aggravated by the hostile takeover of Gujarat Vidyapith.
A note was posted on the Facebook account of Gujarat Vidyapith’s Sadra village campus on 12 October, which hailed Acharya Devvrat as a notch above any surviving Gandhian. This note could not have been posted without the approval of Khimani.
It turned out, the said note was originally posted by a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh sympathiser Kishore B Joshi on his Facebook account on 5 October, the day after Devvrat’s name was voted in. The Gujarat Vidyapith’s Sadra account copied Joshi’s laudatory write-up after a week. It also removed two sentences, which were detrimental in projecting Devvrat as a Gandhian. The translation of the edited lines goes like this: “This is a fierce battle of ideologies. The RSS will celebrate the Vijaya Dashmi by obtaining this Amrut Kumbh (Gujarat Vidyapith) during the ongoing celebration of Amrut Mahotasva of Azadi.”
Whether the current VC Khimani will survive after the new Chancellor takes over or will he resign but survive the heat of inquiry, is yet to be seen. But the failure and complicity of the Governing Council members, Khimani’s role in this hostile takeover and routine coverage of this extraordinary ‘operation’ in Gujarati media indicate once again the direction in which the winds are blowing.
Urvish Kothari is a senior columnist and writer based in Ahmedabad. Views are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)