The exit of Pratap Bhanu Mehta from Ashoka University and the subsequent resignation of Arvind Subramanian has led to a meltdown of the left-liberal intelligentsia of the country. From academics like Raghuram Rajan, who jumped for American citizenship at the first opportunity but is now more concerned about academic freedom in India, to compulsive critics like Siddharth Varadarajan, everyone expressed ‘concern’ over the alleged shrinking space for academic freedom in the country.
Rajan, who prefers LinkedIn over Twitter to express his views, declared that this is due to “outside pressure”. “…Ashoka’s founders have succumbed to outside pressure to get rid of a troublesome critic,” he argued.
“The reality is that professor Mehta is a thorn in the side of the establishment. He is no ordinary thorn because he skewers those in government and in high offices like the Supreme Court with vivid prose and thought-provoking arguments,” Mr Rajan said.
Pratap Bhanu Mehta & Arvind Subramanian quitting Ashoka University is sad news. The best minds are combative minds, critical minds. If we can't tolerate that, we damage creativity. The ultimate loser is the nation–its economy & growth. There are enough examples around the world.
— Kaushik Basu (@kaushikcbasu) March 18, 2021
Kaushik Basu took to Twitter to express his grief over the loss to the nation due to the resignation of Mehta. “Pratap Bhanu Mehta & Arvind Subramanian quitting Ashoka University is sad news. The best minds are combative minds, critical minds. If we can’t tolerate that, we damage creativity. The ultimate loser is the nation–its economy & growth. There are enough examples around the world,” he tweeted.
Pratap Mehta has single handedly raised the bar of public discourse in India.His mid-semester "resignation" shows we've entered next phase of suppression of ideas, that there are no "safe heavens" for dissenters, not even in private univs.
What/who next? https://t.co/DNcWdZCke9— Yogendra Yadav (@_YogendraYadav) March 17, 2021
Yogendra Yadav declared that we have reached the next phase of suppression of ideas and wondered who will be next after Mehta. “Pratap Mehta has single handedly raised the bar of public discourse in India. His mid-semester ‘resignation’ shows we’ve entered next phase of suppression of ideas, that there are no ‘safe heavens’ for dissenters, not even in private universities.”
What/who next?” he tweeted.
Who needs Pratap Bhanu Mehta when we have spouses of leading industrialists available to teach our students. Stop outraging over trivial issues.
— Rana Ayyub (@RanaAyyub) March 19, 2021
Rana Ayyub tried to look sarcastic and tweeted, “Who needs Pratap Bhanu Mehta when we have spouses of leading industrialists available to teach our students. Stop outraging over trivial issues.”
.@pbmehta who resigned as Prof of Ashoka Univ,said this when he resigned as VC. “India is governed by a regime whose sole raison d’etre is to find an adversarial rallying point&crush it by brute force. It now legitimises itself,not by its accomplishments." https://t.co/Un4pT0meh7
— Prashant Bhushan (@pbhushan1) March 17, 2021
Prashant Bhushan, among the most eminent of the eminent intellectuals, obviously did not miss the chance and used Karan Thapar’s interview in which Mehta said “colloquially speaking this is a fascist government” to express grief over the state of the country.
“India is governed by a regime whose sole raison d’etre is to find an adversarial rallying point&crush it by brute force. It now legitimises itself,not by its accomplishments,” tweeted Bhushan.
Pratap Bhanu Mehta’s resignation and the subsequent fallout only highlights the hollowness of academic freedom in India and the fate that awaits those critical of the current regime. The BJP government is thin skinned when it comes to criticism. My piece https://t.co/Y01YFnVSuR
— Nidhi Razdan (@Nidhi) March 21, 2021
Nidhi Razdan, who cannot differentiate between real mail and fake mail, wrote an article on the issue in Gulf news and posted it on Twitter with the caption that the BJP government is thin on criticism. “Pratap Bhanu Mehta’s resignation and the subsequent fallout only highlights the hollowness of academic freedom in India and the fate that awaits those critical of the current regime. The BJP government is thin skinned when it comes to criticism,” she tweeted.
A wise and brave man invoked Locke in an attempt to make sense of Pratap Bhanu Mehta's unfortunate exit from Ashoka University:
"What's the point of writing if no one wants to cut your head off for it"
So here's wishing more power to Pratap's pen!https://t.co/QwHBGW7NM6
— Siddharth (@svaradarajan) March 17, 2021
Siddharth Varadarajan wished more power to Pratap’s Pen and tweeted, “A wise and brave man invoked Locke in an attempt to make sense of Pratap Bhanu Mehta’s unfortunate exit from Ashoka University:
“What’s the point of writing if no one wants to cut your head off for it”
So here’s wishing more power to Pratap’s pen!”
Mehta, who has tried to advance the left-liberal thought at the Ashoka University, resigned from the post of Vice-chancellor in July 2019, a few months after the Modi government was elected to power with an even bigger majority.
“The contemporary world has unsettled so many of our political and philosophical assumptions, and I increasingly felt the need to reorient myself academically. Hence, the decision to step down,” said Mehta in his resignation letter.
Before the whopping electoral verdict of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Pratap Bhanu Mehta had been heard saying, “The last five years have been a mutilation of the Indian soul,” he said. “They stand for everything that is un-Indian,” and “against every promise that this democracy gave to each one of its citizens.”
The ‘values’ left-liberals held dear find no resonance with the values held by the modern political class which holds the governments in most of the countries around the world, and this has made people like Mehta irrelevant in the modern political discourse.
When you genuinely believe that the last five years (2014-2019) were a total drain on India’s democratic value and then in the next election the voters elect the government with an even bigger margin, on the moral ground you should resign. So well done PBM. Good Bye.
This is a class of self proclaimed semi gods. Students now may have an opportunity to listen to different view point.