Govt may not extend Amartya Sen‘s tenure as NU chancellor

I would not quarrel with anything Sen has to say about political interference in academic institutions. This has been the case all along in many places. The sooner it is ended the better.

However, one wonders why he thinks his own appointment as chancellor of NU was not political in nature.

There is little doubt that Sen was the intellectual father of many of Sonia Gandhi’s social spending schemes. And Sen himself kept making political statements in support of “my friend’ Manmohan Singh, and, famously, said that he would not like to see Modi as Prime Minister.

For so political a person to complain about how politicians are meddling with academic institutions is interesting.

But, even assuming the Modi government is not keen on his continuing as Chancellor (we don’t know that as yet), there are good reasons to consider other options beyond Sen once his term ends this July.

First, Sen is well past 81. Why should someone this old be running a young institution? When the university formally opened for its first academic session last September, Sen did not turn up for the event.

Second, Sen has not distinguished his tenure as chairman of the board (and de facto chancellor) by setting any great example of high-minded governance. In fact, the key appointments to the university have been dogged by controversies relating to nepotism and non-transparency.

For example, the Vice-Chancellor, Gopa Sabharwal, was just a reader at Delhi’s Lady Shriram College when she was appointed to the top job and given a salary of over Rs 5 lakh per month. While this may not be objectionable in a university that has a global mandate, this salary was nearly twice what the Delhi University VC was getting. The brouhaha forced her to take a cut. But despite the fact that NU is based in Rajgir, where a 450-acre campus is being planned, she is reported to be functioning out of Delhi.

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 (read Kalam’s note here).

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.

Nalanda University, which will be fully funded by the centre to the tune of over Rs 1,000 crore, deserves someone younger and more committed to the idea of reviving its past glory as a knowledge centre. It was ransacked and burnt by Muslim marauders in the 11th century AD.

The writer is editor-in-chief, digital and publishing, Network18 Group