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+ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaIN6lj0gW4 1st Prof. G. N. Saibaba Memorial Lecture by Retd. Justice S. Muralidhar, 12 Oct. 2025
+ I want to begin today's lecture
+by talking about three scenarios which I think will describe the status
+of academic freedom in India today.
+The first scenario goes like this
+and these are real stories not fiction.
+In December 2022, the Madhya Pradesh police booked Professor Inamul Rahman,
+principal of the government new law college in Indor for allegedly keeping a Hindu phobic and antinational book in
+the college library. This book was titled collective violence and criminal justice system co-authored
+by Dr. Sheetal Kval and Dr. Farat Khan. This book was in the GNLC library since
+. Dr. Emma joined the GNLC 5 years later
+in 2019. [Music] The book according to the Akil Bharata
+Vidyati Parish the ABVP which is the student wing of the Rashtria Swami Seak the RSS.
+This book talked about the emergence of Hindu communalism as a destructive ideology. It is also supposed to have
+said that the Vishuh Hindu Parishad and other Hindutwa outfits seek to establish a Hindu majority state and want to
+enslave other communities. The book had been already revised in 2021
+to remove the so-called offending portions. The Madhya Pradesh Higher Education
+Minister Moan Yadav who now happens to be its chief minister instituted an
+inquiry into how the book was being allowed to be used for reference in the college.
+Acting on a complaint by a secondyear LLM student Lucky Aidal who was a member of the ABVP, the home
+minister Naruta Mishra ordered the registration of an FIR under several provisions of the IPC. Section 153A
+promoting enmity on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence. Section
+A, malicious acts intended to outrage feelings, religious feelings of any
+class. Section 500, criminal defamation. Section 504, intentional insult with an
+intent to provoke and breach peace. Section 505, statements conducing
+conducting to public mischief. The FI also named apart from professor,
+Dr. Far Khan, the co-author of the book, the book's publisher Amar Law Publication and Professor Mirajis Bake.
+The Supreme Court stayed the arrest of Rahman and Be. Rahman resigned as principal. The other
+two never returned to Indor. In May 2024,
+about 18 months after this happened, the Supreme Court of India quashed the FIR
+terming it to be absurd. But the damage was done. None of the
+three could teach at the government new law college again.
+The second scenario goes like this. A shocking video emerged in the social
+media in the last week of August 2023. In it, Tripi Thiagi, a teacher at the
+Niha public school in Muzafur Nagar district in northern Uttar Pradesh could
+be seen asking each of the students in her class to slap their seven-year-old
+classmate who was a Muslim. As the boy stands fearfully wailing with
+each slap, the teacher is heard asking the other students to do it properly.
+The superintendent of police of the district later told reporters that the teacher told the students to hit the boy
+for not remembering his timetables. The SP further disclosed that the
+teacher's justification was when mothers of Madan students don't pay attention to the children's studies that performance
+is ruined. The third scenario
+on 9th August 2023 a 17-year-old Dalith male student in a
+partly aided school in Nanganeri which is a town in Tinelwi district in Tamil Nadu was brutally attacked by
+sickles by his three classmates who were marav and intermediate dominant cast
+forming part of the mukulats. When his younger sister tried to save
+him, she too was attacked. What had provoked the brutal assault?
+Urked by the Dalik boy doing well in his class, far better than them, the
+dominant cast boys would constantly harass, humiliate, and taunt him with cast slurs and ask him to perform menial
+tasks for them. To avoid this, he stopped going to school. When the
+principal inquired, Dalit Boy confided the real reason. This then led to the
+incident I just spoke about. Both the boy and his younger sister were hospitalized with serious injuries for
+which they underwent surgeries. They were relocated to a different school.
+Within 3 days of this incident that sent shock waves throughout Tamil Nadu, the government after making all the right
+noises appointed Justice K. Chandru, a former judge of the Midas High Court as a one-man committee to suggest measures
+to be taken to create an atmosphere free of cast creed differences in schools and
+colleges in Tamil Nadu. Why was this necessary? As the New Indian Express
+reported in November 2015, school children in parts of Tamili were
+wearing wristbands in different colors, each indicating the particular cast to
+which they belonged. It is red and yellow for the tver, blue and yellow for
+the Nadars, saffron for the yadavs. All socially and politically powerful Hindu
+communities that come under the most backward classes category. While students of the Dalith community of
+Palers wear wristbands in green and red and the Arundati also Dalits wear green,
+black and white. Four years earlier in August 2019, the
+Tamadu state education department had issued a circular discouraging the
+practice in schools. The most vehement opposition to this
+move came from the BJP national secretary H. Raja who tweeted that tying
+threads on wrists and wearing tilts on foreheads are related to Hinduism.
+Banning these in schools, he said, was a blatant anti-Hindu action. He also
+asked, does the school education director have the courage to ban symbols of other religions?
+The above instances, the three instances I spoke of, give us a fair idea on where
+we stand on academic freedom in our country. The expression academic freedom has been
+deliberated and debated upon sufficiently the world over mainly because it faces threats universally,
+even more than ever before. An updated version of the academic freedom index
+prepared by the FAU institute of political sciences and the VDM Institute was brought out in 2025.
+It gives an overview of the state of academic freedom across 179 countries.
+Its analysis showed that countries with anti-pluralist parties in government
+have lower levels of academic freedom than those where antipuralist parties have little to no political influence.
+It knows how antipuralist parties lack commitment to the democratic process as
+the legal means of gaining and losing power. Once installed in power, antiplural parties tend to deepen
+differences between political camps, reduce the space for public contestation, and undermine mutual
+forbearance. In the academic freedom index of 2025,
+India features at the bottom 10 to 20% of countries where academic freedom is
+completely restricted. This is a huge dive from 2013 when it was within the
+category of fully free and 2022 when it had fallen to mostly restricted.
+India features in the index just above Syria, Iran, Laos and Palestine. India
+performs worse than even Hungary, Hong Kong, Sudan, Yemen, Bangladesh and
+Russia. The E AFI reveals that more than half of the world's population currently lives
+in completely restricted or severely restricted levels of academic freedom.
+Whereas in 2006 approximately 4 billion people lived in places with robust environments for academic freedom. Today
+that number has declined by more than a quarter to 2.8 billion. A report titled free to think is brought
+out periodically by an international coalition of academics and experts named scholars at risk s.
+In the latest version, S has assessed data collected from 1st July 2023 to
+th June 2024 of 391 attacks arising from 313 incidents in 51 countries and
+territories. The SE report talks of the concerning trends in 18 countries which includes
+India over the past decade. India is among the countries where universities
+have canled lectures, poetry readings and film screenings related to violence in the Middle East. Often university
+leaders have justified the cancellations by expressing unspecified security concerns. India also figures amongst
+those countries where state and higher education officials call in the police or security forces to break up protests.
+The academic freedom that these empirical studies speak of can be best understood by referring to the report
+released on 31st May 2024 by the working group on academic freedom
+comprising international experts constituted under the ages of the United Nations. They have prepared a set of
+nine principles for implementing the right to academic freedom. The foremost of these identifies academic freedom as
+a human right to acquire, develop, transmit, apply and engage with a
+diversity of knowledge and ideas through research, teaching, learning and discourse. Such engagement could take
+place inside the academic community which is called as intramural expression or outside the academic community
+including with the public called extramural expression. Another principle recognized is the
+right of the student to academic freedom at all levels beginning with childhood
+schooling. The UN special rapeer on the right to education Farida Shahid
+submitted her report on academic freedom at the 56th session of the UN human rights council held between 18th June
+and 12th July 2024. In it she noted importantly that students should have the right to
+express themselves on specific subjects without fear of reprisal. Also the
+respect due to cultural diversity and the need to ensure a multi-perspective approach including its subjects such as
+history should be accounted for. She urged that while educators should be encouraged to foster critical thinking
+and to provide diverse perspectives, they should do so in a manner that upholds the principle of pluralism,
+respect for others and the pursuit of knowledge, including a supportive environment where students are
+encouraged to think critically, engage with varying viewpoints and developed
+informed perspectives. Most significant is the special
+rapetier's proposal that academic freedom should be considered to be an autonomous human right grounded in
+several provisions of international law. I now move on to something that is very
+close to what I do that is the legal regime and the courts.
+Let us briefly examine what the legal regime in our country is concerning education and academic freedom. Article
+F of our constitution talks of the unenforcable right of a child to be
+provided by the state opportunities and facilities to develop in a healthy manner and in conditions of freedom and
+dignity. Another directive principle is in article 45 which originally provided
+that within a period of 10 years the state shall endeavor to provide free and compulsory education to all children up
+to the age of 14 years. In 1993, the Supreme Court of India in the landmark decision titled JB Uni Krishna versus
+State of Andhra Pradesh declared that the right to education is a fundamental right of every citizen up to the age of
+. It took another 10 years for the parliament in 2002 to insert article 21
+capital A in part three of the constitution to recognize as a fundamental right the right of every
+child between the ages of 6 and 14 to free and compulsory education. that however was made dependent for its
+enforcement on a law made by parliament. Incidentally, this amendment was notified only eight years later with
+effect from 1st April 2010, the same date on which the right to free and compulsory education act, the RTE act
+became operational. Correspondingly, article 45 was amended to the effect
+that the state shall endeavor to provide early childhood care and education to all children till they complete the age
+of six. However, by restricting the fundamental right to education under article 21A to children between the ages
+of 6 and 14, the constitutional promise remains incomplete. The judgment in JP
+Uni Krishna was in a case concerning the malaise of capitation fees being collected for engineering and medical
+seats in private educational institutions. That problem however continues.
+Two other constitutional provisions that require to be noticed are article 51 capital A clause H which states that it
+shall be the duty of every citizen to develop the scientific temper, humanism
+and the spirit of inquiry and reform. Another provision is clause K of the
+same article 51 capital A which states that every citizen who a parent or guardian shall provide opportunities for
+education to his child or as the case may be ward between the ages of 6 and 14 years. Article 25 guarantees to all
+persons the freedom of conscience, the right to freely profess, practice and propagate religion. Article 30
+recognizes the fundamental right of both religious and linguistic minorities to establish and administer educational
+institutions of their choice. The high courts and the Supreme Court engage on a regular basis with numerous issues
+concerning the right to education including the admission of students to professional courses, reservation of
+seats, appointment of teachers and principles in schools, vice chancellors in universities, anti-aging measures,
+recognition and affiliation of educational institutions and so on. As regards minority institutions, two
+important decisions in the recent past deserve mention. In November 2024, the Supreme Court recognized the right of
+the madrasas in UP to run schools providing for religious instruction and imparting education in other subjects up
+to standard 12. It did not however permit them to award decrees or diplomas. In the second decision by a
+narrow majority of fours to three, the Supreme Court held that the Aligar Muslim University would not lose its
+minority character only because it stood converted into a university by way of a pre-independence statute.
+Yeah, thank you.
+However, these instances do not quite test the court's responses to curbs on academic
+freedom. Where they do, the result can be disappointing. One such instance has been the
+judiciary's handling of the cases of students and teachers jailed for protesting against the Citizenship
+Amendment Act of 2019 and its aftermath. It will be recalled
+that spontaneous protests erupted not just in Delhi but throughout the country and even among the Indian diaspora world
+over. Several hundreds of the protesting students and academics were arrested by the police. Some of them were booked
+under the repressive unlawful activities prevention act the UAPA for alleged
+antinational activity only to ensure that coming out on bail is next to impossible.
+Five years have passed and with no prospect of the trial in these cases commencing anytime soon, there appears
+to be no real justification for denying them bail. And now I come to the case of
+Professor Sai Bababa. The manner in which the Supreme Court of India dealt with the case involving Professor Gian
+Sai Baba who taught English at the Delhi University has had many illegal scholar express sus surprise and disapproval.
+A detailed discussion of the case at this stage may not be warranted as it is still pending in the Supreme Court. Yet
+what we need to know is this. The entire case of the prosecution in support
+of its invocation of the provisions of the UAPA was that Professor Saiaba was
+part of a banned terrorist organization had planned to commit a terrorist acts. The case rested entirely on the
+electronic evidence in the form of CDs, pen drives, and a laptop ceased from his residence on 12th September 2013.
+He was arrested on 9th May 2014. Having been afflicted with polio since his childhood, Professor Ibaba was
+permanently on a wheelchair. Despite this, bail was refused. It took him 10
+years to finally emerge a free person. As was mentioned earlier on 17th March
+on 7th March 2017 the trial court found professor Sai Bababa and the other co-acused guilty
+but this judgment was overturned by the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court on 14th October 2022 more than 5 years
+thereafter. The high court held that the proceedings in criminal cases were null and void for
+want of valid sanction in terms of section 45 subsection one of the UAPA.
+Literally overnight and this two was adverted to literally overnight an appeal was filed by the state of
+Maharashtra which was taken up by a special bench of the Supreme Court on the very next morning which was a
+Saturday that is 15th October 2022 in the residence of one of the judges. The
+acquitt was stayed perhaps a rare occurrence in the history of the Supreme Court.
+Professor Sai Bababa continued therefore in the Andas cell in the Nagpur central jail with the Supreme Court being
+unmoved by his deteriorating medical condition. It took another 6 months for
+the Supreme Court by an order dated 19th April 2023 to remand the appeals to the
+high court for a fresh hearing. For the second time by judgment dated 5th March 2024,
+another bench of the Bombay High Court at Nagpur acquitted all the accused by holding that not only was there no valid
+sanction to prosecute any of the accused but that the evidence gathered did not prove the case of the prosecution.
+Fortunately, in the further appeals by the state against this judgment, no stay was granted by the Supreme Court. As a
+result, Professor Saiaba could ultimately come come out of jail a free man with his head held high but his body
+badly wrecked by the callous treatment he received at the hands of the state during the 10 plus years of
+incarceration. The process was the punishment. Unfortunately, he did not live long
+thereafter and succumbed to a post-operative complication after undergoing surgery for gallbladder
+stones. He was just 57. He was an intellectual whose PhD was in
+on Indian writing in English and nationmaking. Two volumes of his writings and poems
+while in prison have been published. The question that troubles one's conscience the most is this. Who will be held
+accountable and when for what the system did to a man of learning and forbearance?
+Justice appears to have eluded academics and students in the above instances where they've been accused of being
+antinationals and charged with offenses under draconian criminal laws. But then it also appears to elude them when they
+are the victims at the hands of the non-state actors like vigilante groups and dominant casts. I will make good
+this comment by referring to the aftermath of the three scenarios I referred to at the beginning of my talk.
+In the first scenario in the Indor government new law college case, it was only in May 2024 that the Supreme Court
+quashed the FIR against Professor Rahman and his three accused after the terming the criminal case is observed. However,
+Professor Rahman who was forced to resign remains uncompensated for the agony and humiliation he has undergone.
+The others too have not been able to return to the GNLC. This is not an isolated instance. There have been
+persistent attacks by Hindu right-wing groups on educational institutions across the countries run by Christian
+missionaries. The priests and nuns are harassed. Congregational prayers are disrupted. The land is encroached upon
+or building buildings bulldozed and some of them falsely accused of indulging in forcible conversions. These cases too
+are engaging the attention of courts. In the second scenario, the case of the young Muslim boy slapped repeatedly by
+his classmates at the instigation and instruction of his teacher. That case was taken to the Supreme Court by Tushar
+Gandhi. The court found egregious violations of section 17 of the RTE act
+which prohibits any child being subject to physical punishment or mental harassment. The state has been asked to
+bear the entire cost of the education of the child till he completes his schooling. The case remains at the
+Supreme Court for monitoring. The dismal prospect for secular education could well characterize what
+is happening in government run schools across the country including the kandri vidyas. There is a renewed stridency to
+these schools hosting events that further the Hindu right-wing agenda. Professor Krishna Kumar laments the
+disillusionment of teachers in government schools being reduced to event managers or uploaders of
+incomplete data with little or no time for their primary task which is imparting education. All this on top of
+the fact that there are several documented studies to show that the state of infrastructure in the public
+schools across the country is pathetic to say the least. a wful shortage of
+everything essential. Teachers, classrooms, chairs and tables, blackboards, clean drinking water, clean
+toilets. Naturally, therefore, the private tuition industry is flourishing. The hope of academic freedom to pursue
+education is but a distant dream for those who cannot afford the costs. In
+the third scenario, the attack on the Dalith boy by the dominant cast Hindu boys, the Tamil Nadu
+state government stepped in to provide relief for both the medical treatment of the young boy and his sister, but also ensured his admission to another school
+where he continues to do well in his studies. When Justice Chadru met him, he wished even his attackers that they
+would do well in their studies. And Justice Chadru was astonished that such a young boy could display so much
+maturity. He was again recently attacked physically but it is possible according to media reports that this did not have
+a cast angle. Sia Dingra talks about the recent phenomenon of dozens of RSS swam
+seek triumphantly marching across the JNU campus with drums, trumpets and
+clashing symbols. Many wielded the customary Shaka Latis unimaginable 12
+years ago. One of the professors who spoke to her commented, and I quote, "Earlier admittedly, the teachers had a
+bias against students who subscribed to the BJP RSS's ideology, but that there
+was never a full-blown attack on academics itself." And he added, and I quote, "The problem is that as a result
+of the former left's volability all these years, JNU came to represent the deep feelings of victimhood and
+otherization harbored by the right. That is why winning JNU has been almost more
+important for them than winning some state elections. It is like finally conquering the institution that has
+represented their intellectual marginalization and humiliation for decades. This is the same ABVP which has
+facilitated the rise of many a present day leader. the prime minister, the home minister, the Raa Mantri, several
+ministers of the union cabinet, many of the chief ministers of the BJP ruled states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya
+Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan, former ministers like the late Arunji,
+Prakash Jawadka, Ravish Shanka Prasad and even the vice president, former vice president Wenke. They were all student
+leaders once who cut their teeth with the ABVP and were focused on challenging the ruling establishment of their times.
+They do they they did undergo persecution and even imprisonment during the infamous emergency unleashed by Mrs.
+Gandhi and her cronies. However, one doesn't recall their being called to tou
+or antinational. Professor Gan Prakash disagrees with the widely shared prognosis that what we are
+undergoing as a country today is another undeclared emergency. According to him,
+what we have today is a more virulent form of totalitarianism where dissent is simply eradicated from
+public spaces aided by the complete control of the mainstream media both electronic and social. Also, the heavy
+hammer of a bouquet of repressive criminal laws brought against the present day academics and students
+appears unrelenting. The instances that have been much discussed in the media reveal a pattern
+to the ABVP's methods. They can vandalize departments if they feel that a teacher has said something in class
+that they think is in insulting to Hinduism or hurts religious sentiments. Protests against appointment to academic
+positions of whom they perceive to be left liberal, secular or urban axel. In November 2018, historian Ramchandra Goha
+withdrew from a teaching position he was offered at the Ahmedabad University. Dr. Fio Khan was offered his first job to
+teach Sanskrit literature at the Banaharas Hindu University could not conduct a single class. Some 30 students
+of the ABVP staged a sit in outside the vice chancellor's office in protest
+saying that it wasn't right for a Muslim professor to be teaching them Sanskrit. They obviously disagree with the recent
+Supreme Court judgment that reminded us that Udu is an Indian language and that language is not tied to religion and
+that multilingualism is a reflection of India's reality. Women teachers in Maharashtra have had
+their classes disrupted by angry mobs of ABVP Carders demanding apology for what
+they perceived to be an insult to Chhatrapati Saji. Instead of proceeding against them, the Satara police booked
+the teacher for causing disturbance of peace and this had to be undone by the Bombay High Court. Subsequently,
+even private universities are succumbing to pressures of not only the ruling establishment but vigilante mobs
+furthering the right-wing agenda by not supporting their own faculty who have asserted the right of academic freedom.
+These institutions have forced their resignation. The resignation of professor Sabisachi Das of Ashoka
+University is one such instance. This vindicates the observation of the special rabbiteer and I quote her.
+Academic freedom is curtailed when universities seeking state resources and/or patronage enter into compromising
+relationships with people in power. We are seeing this play out in the US now resulting in a curious situation whereby
+academic freedom is suppressed with the apparent support of the academic establishment. The net result is a
+system operating mostly through hidden selfcensorship. Most more recently, Professor
+Mahmahudabad was booked for a social media comment made by him following the press briefing held by the armed forces
+on operation sindur. The Supreme Court protected him from arrest but astonishingly directed that the SIT
+constituted by it will analyze the hidden meaning of the words used by him.
+Even private think tanks have not been spared and the center for policy research has been raided with the IT and
+the ED uh issuing showcourse notices to it. There are then other challenges to
+academic freedom. Among the serious challenges to both institutional autonomy and academic freedom is the
+corporatization of education. Major business enterprises are in the field of education and have been successful in
+commoditizing, branding and marketing education as a product affordable to a few and out of reach for the many.
+Teachers are reduced to service providers and students to being consumers. Commentators on this worrying
+trend tell us that the focus now is less on research and more on performance and outcomes. The high costs of pursuing
+professional courses including law in private elite universities compels many
+a student to borrow heavily to compel complete the basic level of education and then succumb to the temptation of
+opting for the highest paying job. A direct impact on academic freedom to
+choose one's career path. The use of digital technology has not made it any easier for academic freedom. On the
+contrary, the challenge today is sifting the fake news from the real, spotting the manufactured AI generated work from
+the genuinely researched ones and shutting out the garbage that the net is hosted to. How does one protect
+impressionable minds from the onsl onslaught of WhatsApp forwards where halfbaked opinions based on
+misinformation passes off for expert opinion. In this scenario, the internet
+has the potential of posing yet another threat to academic freedom. Add to this
+the fact that most campuses today are fortresses where CCTV cameras facilitate constant
+surveillance and biometric attendance is the norm. Campus violence is on the rise
+as is drug abuse. Police everywhere are infiltrating student WhatsApp groups.
+The faculty too is under their radar. Signing of letter petitions protesting arbitrary actions of the government or
+even of right-wing groups and their role models invites showcase notice to the faculty for crossing the line.
+Loss of institutional autonomy autonomy is felt most when the control is sought
+to be exercised over what can constitute the syllabus and the reading material that can be referred to. This concerns
+both schools and colleges.
+The RSS has an educational wing called Vidyabharti. As of today, if you go on the website,
+it tells you that the Vidya runs as many as 12,754
+formal schools hosting 3.2 million students and 12,654
+informal schools hosting 2.45 45 million students and it also employs 1.5 lakh
+teachers. Most of these schools are affiliated to the CBSC, various state boards and the
+national institute of open schooling. Vidya's books are published in Hindi and
+other regional languages including Bengali, Tamil and Odia and they are taught in addition to the government
+approved curriculum. A question and answer on page five of Bodh Mala 4, a
+textbook on cultural knowledge intended for class 4 students reads like this question. Which are the countries along
+our present day border that were once part of a country? Answer: Bram brackets
+Myanmar, Bangladesh to the east, Pakistan and Afghanistan to the west, Tibet, Nepal and Bhutan to the north and
+Sri Lanka to the south. A teacher's guide book part of the same series makes
+this amazing claim. Earlier Hindu culture prevailed all over Jamu. What we
+call Asia today was the ancient Jamudepi. the whole of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq,
+Iran, Kazakhstan, Israel, Russia, Mongolia, China, Myanmar, Indonesia,
+Malaysia, Java, Sumatra, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan and
+Afghanistan were part of it. So a teacher is supposed to teach this
+to class 4 students. a teacher's guide book. Sorry. All this
+may not be cause for worry if it weren't part of the general push for revival of what is now termed as Indian knowledge
+systems. These ideas appear to have percolated into the curriculum of formal institutions like the National Institute
+of Open Schooling which has already included in its curriculum the claims of Canada's atomic theory, Susha's plastic
+surgery and vic mathematics. The book Vimarika Shastra is cited in NCERT's new
+module on the Chandayan mission for seemingly revealing that our civilization had the knowledge of flying
+vehicles. This could also explain ISRO chief Somat claiming in 2023
+that major scientific de developments in branches like metalergy, astrology,
+astronomy, aeronautical sciences and physics took place in ancient India and were later taken to Europe by the Arabs.
+Textbooks on history across grades and political science for classes 11 and 12
+have been particular targets for retelling and rewriting. Last month the press reported the
+students in government schools in Delhi will soon study about the RSS alongside
+freedom fighters under a new educational initiative called Rashtrianiti. Another news item disclosed that RSS
+will be opening schools to train students for the armed forces. A longtime watcher of the Hindu rightwing
+groups, Nilenjan Mukhabadaya said that the idea behind the RSS operating such a
+large network of schools across the country is to catch the Hindu minds young and instill the idea of ancient
+Hindu invincibility. a past when Hindu India was the dominant race all over the
+world and that the golden bird of Indian civilization was destroyed by thousand
+years of slavery first in the hands of Muslims and then the Christian colonial powers. Then there are a slew of
+directives to universities and institutes of higher learning from the UGC. This extends from organizing
+meditation sessions developed by Shrii Sha Ravishanka's agency the art of living foundation to celebrating events
+and festivals within campuses. There are revisions to syllabuses and reading lists that do not pass the master of
+right-wing groups. The forcible removal of the essay titled
+Ramayanas five examples and three thoughts on translation by loted noted
+literature AK Ramanujan has been removed from the list of reading materials for
+the BA honors course in the Delhi University. Then you have the complete takeover of
+the Indian Council for Historical Research, the Archical Archeological Survey of India, the Indian Science
+Congress, the appointments as directors of the various IITs and the IM, the vice
+chancellors of various universities including the Nalanda University and even Vishuabari
+and even recently the film and television television institute of India. When one steps back to view the changes
+in the past decade in the field of education, it is striking how persistent, deep and pervasive has been
+the effort to capture the popular imagination of not just the public but of young impressionable minds. There is
+a concerted attempt to purge it of anything that can be seen as questioning the policies and actions of the ruling establishment. There is a smuggness to
+debunking science and glorifying past learnings. When you prefix liberal with
+left and misspelled secular as secular, deriding intellectual discourse is
+relatively simple. What can be taught? How can it be taught? Who can teach? Who
+can be taught? What can be written about or commented on are all no longer to be
+decided by educational institutions. They are to be pre-clared, vetted by extra legal mechanisms and bodies. You
+can dream, you can imagine, but on to act on them you need permission.
+Dissent is not to be encouraged much less tolerated. In the India of 2025,
+Fez Emits Fes's poem bowl can be recited but terms and conditions apply.
+Reciting or shouting Azadi in the campus of an educational institution might invite
+being labeled urban axel to create rupe gang khan market type or even ju type.
+I come to the last versions of this talk. Academic freedom in India throws up
+challenges of accommodating several competing interests and on top of it social inequalities exacerbated by cast,
+class and communal prejudices. The Supreme Court has in the context of accepting a limited quota in Delhi since
+Stephen College for those following this Christian faith reminded all of us that and I quote every educational
+institution irrespect of the community to which it belongs is a melting pot in our national life. The students and
+teachers are the critical ingredients. It is there they develop respect for and tolerance of the cultures and beliefs of
+others. It is essential therefore that there should be a proper mix of students of different communities in all
+educational institutions. Is there then hope? This is what most of
+us here would want to know. History tells us that even these times pass.
+Many a teacher and student is in some or other corner of the country resisting resisting being taken over by or
+surrendering to the pressures and pulls of a repressive regime. They signify the resilience of the human spirit to stand
+up firm against the odds. Ours is a plural society with lived histories of
+inclusivity, sharing and compassion. If we don't let that yearning within each
+of us to get snuffed out, there will be hope. Most importantly, it is essential
+as for us to nurture that spirit and the constitutional values that we wish to
+live by so that future generations will learn from our experience and know what to value and what to preserve.
+The changes that we have witnessed in the past decade may be of a more enduring nature than we can imagine. It
+renders the task of restitution of our belief in constitutional values of inclusivity and pluralism even more
+challenging. How do we reclaim secular spaces for academic freedom within public universities and institutions of
+higher learning? How should private universities be facilitated to regain institutional autonomy? How can we
+cultivate and nurture scientific temper and a spirit of inquiry in young minds?
+How can we improve the conditions of a public and government schooling to provide a hope for academic freedom from
+childhood to adulthood? How do we build on the space that we have on the internet and spread the good work of
+through influences? How do we restore dignity of the individual in the closed learning space
+without distinction that the basis of cast, gender and general stereotyping?
+We have in our midst different models of education that appear to provide that alternate space at least in the recent
+past. The Shantinetan model or the Krishna Morti Foundation of India model for instance. Can we replicate these or
+adapt them for today's needs? Our answers to these questions will determine the course of academic freedom
+for those that follow. In signing off today's talk, I wish to
+recall a marvelous judgment delivered on 11th August 1986 by the Supreme Court in
+Bij Emanuel versus the state of Kerala. The three appellants before the Supreme Court were Bij Binol and Bindu Emanuel.
+They belonged to the Yahoo's witnesses, a Christian denomination. Daily during
+the morning assembly when the national anthem was sung the three children stood respectfully but did not sing because
+according to them it was against the tenets of their religious faith. Not the words or the thoughts of the anthem but
+the singing of it. This led them to being expelled from the school which action they unsuccessfully challenged in
+the Kerala High Court. The Supreme Court on 11th August 1986 reversed the high
+court decision and held that the expulsion of the three children from the school was a violation of their fundamental right to freedom of
+conscience and freely to profess practice and propagate religion under article 25 clause one of the
+constitution. The court ended the judgment with a flourish reminding us that our tradition
+teaches tolerance, our philosophy preaches tolerance, our constitution practices tolerance. It exhausts us. It
+exhausts us not to dilute it. The children were asked to be readmitted to
+the school
 Instances': Justice S. Muralidhar On Status Of Academic Freedom In India | Communalism | Caste
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OAWInDLXeY