Ashokan edicts
Mukul Kesavan | 3 September 2023 | Telegraph
Ashoka University’s (henceforth Ashoka) treatment of Sabyasachi Das after he uploaded a working paper that touched on possible voter suppression in Indian elections has focused attention on the future of elite private universities in India.
The pragmatic defence of Ashoka’s bid to distance itself from Das in its statement on August 1 is straightforward. In a time when public universities have been publicly brought to heel by an ideologically intolerant State (JNU, Jamia Millia Islamia and Delhi University are prominent examples within the capital), private universities trying to create centres of academic excellence must necessarily walk a tightrope.