Author: R Jagannathan
Publication: Firstpost.com
Date: February 21, 2015
URL:   http://www.firstpost.com/india/amartya-sen-quits-nalanda-university-but-his-sour-exit-does-him-no-credit-2110977.html

Amartya Sen is miffed that the NDA government is no hurry to extend his tenure as Chancellor of Nalanda University (NU), a global university being set up under an act of parliament in Bihar’s Rajgir district. In a letter to the NU board, which is dominated by many international names, Sen said “it is hard for me not to conclude that the government wants me the cease being the chancellor of NU after this July, and technically it has the power to do so.”

While sending this letter, quoted by The Indian Express today (20 February), Amartya Sen also could not resist taking a potshot at the centre: “I am also sad, at a more general level, that academic governance in India remains so deeply vulnerable to the opinions of the ruling government, when it chooses to make political use of the special provisions. Even though the Nalanda University Act, passed by the Parliament, did not, I believe, envisage political interference in academic matters, it is formally the case - given the legal provisions (some of them surviving from colonial days) - that the government can turn an academic issue into a matter of political dispensation, if it feels unrestrained about interfering.”

Amartya Sen is miffed that the NDA government is no hurry to extend his tenure as Chancellor of Nalanda University (NU), a global university being set up under an act of parliament in Bihar’s Rajgir district. In a letter to the NU board, which is dominated by many international names, Sen said “it is hard for me not to conclude that the government wants me the cease being the chancellor of NU after this July, and technically it has the power to do so.”

While sending this letter, quoted by The Indian Express today (20 February), Amartya Sen also could not resist taking a potshot at the centre: “I am also sad, at a more general level, that academic governance in India remains so deeply vulnerable to the opinions of the ruling government, when it chooses to make political use of the special provisions. Even though the Nalanda University Act, passed by the Parliament, did not, I believe, envisage political interference in academic matters, it is formally the case - given the legal provisions (some of them surviving from colonial days) - that the government can turn an academic issue into a matter of political dispensation, if it feels unrestrained about interfering.”

Third, many key appointments appeared to point to the influence of Upinder Singh, a historian and daughter of Sen’s friend Manmohan Singh. Soon after Gopa was appointed VC, Upinder was appointed as guest faculty at the University.

According to this Bihar Times report, Sabharwal appointed another friend, Anjana Sharma, as officer on special duty, again with a hefty salary.

Bihar Times lists Upinder Singh, Anjana Sharma, Gopa Sabharwal and Nayanjot Lahiri as four “sahelis” from Delhi who are closely associated with Nalanda.

The newspaper also notes that APJ Abdul Kalam, former President and the man who first suggested the idea of reviving Nalanda’s past glory in 2006, declined to become its First Visitor (President Pranab Mukherjee is now the First Visitor, an honorary position) as he felt that the university needed a full time Chancellor and VC and not someone with other preoccupations. This implies that he did not think highly of the appointment of Sen as Chancellor, or his VC .

Sen is right to flag political interference as a big issue in Indian academics, but he does protest too much. He appears to have done little to distinguish his own tenure at Nalanda with unimpeachable appointments that everyone would have lauded.