Free to Think 2021: Report of the Scholars at Risk Academic Freedom Monitoring Project https://www.scholarsatrisk.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Scholars-at-Risk-Free-to-Think-2021.pdf ..Free to Think 2021 documents 332 attacks on higher education communities in 65 countries and territories.... Around the world, higher education communities are overwhelmed by frequent attacks on scholars, students, staff, and their institutions... Ultimately, they impact all of us, by damaging higher education’s unique capacity to drive the social, political, cultural, and economic development from which we all benefit. ... In India, authorities are prosecuting more than a dozen scholars and students under the country’s anti-terrorism laws, in an apparent act of retaliation against their expression and views critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his administration.
Scholars at Risk calls on states, higher education communities, and civil society around the world to respond to these attacks: to reject violence and coercion aimed at restricting inquiry and expression; to protect threatened scholars, students, and higher education institutions; and to reaffirm publicly their commitment to academic freedom and support for the principles that critical discourse is not disloyalty, that ideas are not crimes, and that everyone must be free to think, question, and share their ideas.
Chapter: Academic Freedom and Its Protection Under International Law https://www.scholarsatrisk.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Scholars-at-Risk-Free-to-Think-2021.pdf#page=15
At the international level, protections for academic freedom begin within the documents collectively known as the International Bill of Human Rights:
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Specifically, ICCPR Article 19(2) protects the right of everyone to hold opinions without interference and:
the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of [one’s] choice.
The United Nations (UN) Human Rights Committee has stated that the right includes teaching and public commentary by researchers.1
y, UNESCO’s 1997 Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher-Education Teaching Personnel (RSHETP) articulates academic freedom to include, among other things, the freedom of teaching and discussion, freedom in carrying out research and disseminating and publishing the results thereof, freedom [of higher education personnel to express freely their opinion about the institution or
system in which they work, freedom from institutional censorship and freedom to participate in professional or representative academic bodies.4
India is bound by national and international legal instruments that provide protections for academic freedom. India is a party to international human rights instruments including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which provides for freedom of opinion and expression (Article 19), and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which provides for the right to education (Article 13) and calls on state parties to “respect the freedom indispensable for scientific research and creative activity” ( http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13144&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html )
As discussed in Free to Think 2020, cuts to internet service in Jammu and Kashmir, which began in August 2019 following the revocation that month of its special administrative status, continued to negatively impact academic activity. A proposal to revise existing guidelines on civil servants’ participation in international online events also threatened to restrict scholars’ freedom to engage with their peers around the world. ..A number of scholars and students remain in state custody or under investigation for their expression, views, and associations. These include Anand
Teltumbde, Asif Iqbal Tanha, Devangana Kalita, Gokarakonda Naga (G.N.) Saibaba, Hany Babu, Meeran Haider, Natasha Narwal, Rona Wilson, Safoora Zargar, Sharjeel Imam, Shoma Sen, and Varavara Rao. Most of these scholars and students have been accused of violating the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), a law purportedly intended to prevent acts of terrorism and other national security threats, but that has frequently been used to punish and silence human rights activists, political opposition, and other expression or activities the government finds displeasing.
Higher education institutions retaliated against scholars through suspensions and other pressures. On January 7, 2021, Visva-Bharati University (VBU) suspended economics professor Sudipta
Bhattacharyya, in apparent retaliation for his expression critical of a hiring decision at VBU and his inquiry into a conversation the vice-chancellor claimed to have had with the renowned economist Amartya Sen.21
On May 17, the Central University of Kerala (CUK) suspended Gilbert Sebastian, an assistant professor in the Department of International Relations, for describing the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu-nationalist organization connected to India’s ruling party, as a “proto-fascist” group.23 Sebastian allegedly said this during a virtual session of a course he teaches on
“fascism and Nazism,” during which he also allegedly referred to other political figures and governments that could be considered examples of proto-fascists, including the Spanish general Francisco Franco and the apartheid government of South Africa.
Pratap Bhanu Mehta, a political scientist and the vice-chancellor of Ashoka University from 2017 to 2019, wrote in a resignation that he was considered by the university’s founders to be a “political liability,” apparently due to his writings, saying “My public writing in support of a politics that tries to honour constitutional values of freedom and equal respect for all citizens is perceived to carry risks for the university.”