Ashoka University
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Trivedi Centre for Political Data
Issues in 2023
Shreya Ghosh, Sep 13, 2023: The Times of India
New Delhi : The scientific board of the Trivedi Centre for Political Data (TCPD) at Ashoka University announced in an open letter on Tuesday that it was dissolving itself because the university, “in breach of academic norms”, did not inform or consult the members regarding the “substantial changes” about how the centre would be run. The letter claimed Belgian political scientist Gilles Verniers, founder and codirector of TCPD, had been “forced to leave” the centre.
The scientific board, which includes political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot, former election commissioner SY Quraishi and Milan Vaishnav, director of the South Asia programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said it was “surprised and disappointed” by Ashoka University’s decisions.
“TCPD’s vibrant and important agenda, under the leadership of founding director professor Gilles Verniers, is what attracted each of us to serve on its scientific board and contribute to its intellectual mission,” the letter said. “We commit to supporting Gilles Verniers’ and his partners’ efforts to maintain the future and the integrity of the data and of the work associated with it,” the statement added.
Ashoka University, however, claimed that Verniers’ departure arose due to his failure to meet the stringent criteria for continuation of service. After having left Ashoka, where he was assistant professor of political science, Verniers is now Karl Loewenstein visiting fellow at Amherst College in Massachusetts and senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. It said that faculty who did not qualify for tenure leave the university within three semesters.
Announcing the dissolution of the board, the open letter read, “Given this track record of excellence, we were surprised and disappointed that we, as the scientific board, were not con- sulted before substantial changes were made governing how the centre is run and situated within its home institution in breach of academic norms.”
Quraishi told TOI, “There is complete uncertainty regarding the future of the board, as the decision is to be made by the university. The board has excelled in generating valuable election data and providing it to the public for free. However, the university has been too preoccupied to address the board's situation.”
As per sources, scholars at TCPD have produced 16 datasets, led 20 research projects, organised 80 research seminars, published 20 research papers and book chapters and organised two major conferences on computational social sciences. The team has also published over 300 analyti- cal articles in the Indian press, built high-quality academic partnerships. In 2017, it was designated an ‘International Research Partner’ by the Centre for National Scientific Research, France. The institution's data had become a primary source for scholars, journalists, and researchers studying Indian politics and had been incorporated into various public data repositories worldwide. The board pointed out that these have had “a transformative impact on the field of Indian electoral politics”.
The university said there are plans to integrate some of its centres and offices with the newly established Centre for Data Sciences and Analytics. “The Trivedi Centre for Political Data is among them and its proposed integration with the new centre was communicated to the TCPD scientific board recently,” it added. The letter comes weeks after a controversy at the university following the resignation of assistant professor Sabyasachi Das after a controversy over his research paper arguing that BJP won a disproportionate share of closely contested parliamentary seats in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, especially in states where it was the ruling party at the time.
YEAR-WISE DEVELOPMENTS
2021
Arvind Subramanian, Pratap Bhanu Mehta resign
Shradha Chettri, March , 2021: The Times of India
Ashoka University, which has made a name for itself as one of India’s premier private educational institutions since its foundation in 2014, found itself at the centre of a furore following the resignation of noted economist Arvind Subramanian, who said it was “ominously disturbing” that it could “no longer provide a space for academic expression and freedom”, and the disclosure of Pratap Bhanu Mehta’s letter to the vice-chancellor, earlier in the week, where he wrote, “After a meeting with the founders, it has become abundantly clear to me that my association with the university may be considered a political liability.”
Mehta, a newspaper columnist and public intellectual, also told VC Malabika Sarkar in his letter, “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.”
“It is clear it is time for me to leave Ashoka,” he wrote. “A liberal university will need a liberal political and social context to flourish. I hope the university will play a role in securing that environment. Nietzsche once said that ‘no living for truth is possible in a university.’ I hope that prophecy does not come true. But in light of the prevailing atmosphere, the founders and the administration will require renewed commitment to the values of Ashoka, and new courage to secure Ashoka’s freedom.”
Mehta’s exit raises urgent questions about univ’s commitment to academic freedom, says faculty
In his letter to Sarkar, Subramanian, who returned from the US to be chief economic adviser during the Modi government’s first term, said, “The circumstances involving the ‘resignation’ of Professor Pratap Bhanu Mehta, who is not just a dear friend but a truly inspirational national figure, have devastated me. I am acutely aware of the broader context in which Ashoka and its trustees have to operate, and have so far admired the University for having navigated it so well. But that someone of such integrity and eminence, who embodied the vision underlying Ashoka, felt compelled to leave is troubling. That even Ashoka — with its private status and backing by private capital can no longer provide a space for academic expression and freedom is ominously disturbing. Above all, that the university’s commitment to fight for and sustain the Ashoka vision is now open to question makes it difficult for me to continue being part of Ashoka.” In a statement addressed to Sarkar and the chairman of the board of trustees Ashish Dhawan on Thursday, the university faculty said Mehta’s “departure… raises urgent questions about the university’s commitment to academic freedom as well as its internal processes… It seems quite plausible that his resignation was a direct consequence of his role as a public intellectual and critic of the government. We are greatly troubled by this scenario. Even more troubling is the possibility that our university may have acceded to pressure to remove Prof Mehta or to request, and accept, this resignation. This would fly against the principles of academic freedom on which Ashoka University has been set up and which Prof Mehta in his time… has so scrupulously fought to defend. It would also set a chilling precedent for future removals of faculty, curtailing our sense of who we are as researchers and teachers… We stand in support of Prof Mehta and all academics who risk their personal and professional well-being by speaking truth to power.” Till the time of going to press, Dhawan had not responded to TOI’s efforts to reach him.
Mehta had two years ago resigned from the post of vice-chancellor of the university but continued to teach. Subramanian joined the university last July as a professor in the department of economics and was responsible for establishing its Centre for Economic Policy.
The allegation that Mehta had left because of political reasons was virtually denied by Sarkar earlier at a townhall with students, faculty and alumni on Thursday evening. Referring to Ramachandra Guha’s tweet blaming the “spinelessness of the Trustees, who have chosen to crawl when asked to bend”, Sarkar had told the gathering that she was “utterly mystified”. She said: “I have never seen Ashoka trustees crawling as Ram Guha has said.”
In the wake of the uproar in the academic community, there is speculation that the university might approach Mehta to return to his teaching post.
Kaushik Basu, who teaches at Cornell University and was CEA under UPA (besides having been chief economist at the World Bank), tweeted that the resignations of Mehta and Subramanian were “sad news”. “The best minds are combative minds, critical minds. If we can’t tolerate that, we damage creativity.”
In the wake of the uproar in the academic community, there is speculation that the university might approach Pratap Bhanu Mehta to return to his teaching post
No deal behind Mehta quitting: VC
At a virtual townhall of faculty and students, Ashoka vicechancellor Malabika Sarkar dismissed a claim made in ‘The Edict’, the university’s “independent student newspaper”, that Mehta’s resignation was endorsed by the founders as part of an “understanding” that the acquisition of a new plot of land to expand the campus “would get much smoother”. “Completely mistaken,” she said, adding that the trustees had told her clearly that they didn’t ask Mehta to resign.
