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3 Instances': Justice S. Muralidhar On Status Of Academic Freedom In India | Communalism | Caste
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OAWInDLXeY
 honor to be asked to
deliver the first professor Gian Sai
member.
[Music]
Just a few days before he passed away,
we had a telephone conversation
discussing what our strategy should be.
the appeal that had been filed by the
state in the Supreme Court and it took
me by great surprise to learn after a
few days that he was not around.
I am I have at a distance admired
the courage of professor Sai Baba
and the positivity that he emanated from
what I heard the previous speakers say.
Here is a person who was never cynical,
never defeist
and always lived with hope not for just
himself but for several others awaiting
justice.
[Music]
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. Shitel Kval and Dr. Farad Khan.
This book was in the GNLC library since
2014.
Dr. joined the GNLC 5 years later in
2019.
The book according to the Akil Bharata
Vidyati Parish the ABVP
which is the student wing of the
Rashtria Swami Sevak Sang the RSS.
This book talked about the emergence of
Hindu communalism as a destructive
ideology. It is also supposed to have
said that the Vishua Hindu parished 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 Mooney 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 Idual
who was a member of the ABVP, the Home
Minister Narut Mishra ordered the
registration of an F under several
provisions of the IPC. Section 153A,
promoting enmity on grounds of religion,
race, place of birth, residence. Section
295A, 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
Hman Dr. Faradak Khan the co-author of
the book the book's publisher Amar law
publication and professor Mirajis B
the Supreme Court state the arrest of
Raman 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 FI
terming it to be observe third.
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, Krypti 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
their children's studies their
performance is ruined.
The third scenario
on 9th August 2023
a 17-year-old Dharit male student in a
partly aided school in Nanganeri
which is a town in Tinelwi district in
Tamil Nadu was brutally attacked by
Sigles 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?
Urgked 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, Dhid 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 Tamil were
wearing wristbands in different colors,
each indicating the particular cast to
which they belonged. It is red and
yellow for the tars, blue and yellow for
the nadars, saffron for the yadabs. 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 were 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 30
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 canceled 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
in 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.

'Conquering Institution': Justice S. Muralidhar On Dismal Prospect Of Secular Education

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riBC1Bp-2IQ 
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 stride and
see 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 wfulful
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 Chandru met him,
he wished even his attackers that they
would do well in their studies. And
Justice Chhatru 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. Dr. Sia Dingra talks about
the recent phenomenon of dozens of RSS
swam seek triumphantly marching across
the JNU campus with the 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 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 Arun
Jetti, Praash Jawadka, Ravish Shanka
Prasad and even the vice president,
former vice president Wenaidu. 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 maxel. 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 cards demanding apology for what
they perceived to be an insult to
Chhatrapati Sivaji. 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 Mahudabad
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 showcase notices to
it.

On the Legal Regimes And Courts  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMkDc2nzwAg 
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 39F 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
14.
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 JT
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 Madras 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 degrees 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.
[Music]
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.
5 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 Baba. 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 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 Alibaba was
permanently on a wheelchair. Despite
this, bail was refused. It took him 10
years to finally emerge a freeburn
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 too was
adverted too. 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 succumb 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 in 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 two 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. Heat.
Heat.

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