The Promise of Ambedkar University Delhi is in Tatters. Professors are Quitting & Suing
Antara Baruah | 25 September 2024 | The Print
New Delhi: Two professors at Delhi’s Dr BR Ambedkar University waited for hours outside the registrar’s office for their no-objection certificate to travel abroad. There was a lot riding on it—an interview, an international research project and research funds. By the time they got the certificate, the deadline had lapsed. Another professor, who finally quit the university, did not even bother applying for international conferences for the four years that she taught there.
“The university asked more questions and for more documents than the visa office,” said another faculty member.
The lofty promise and potential of Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD) is in peril today. The campus is in a state of quiet turmoil. Cancelled promotions, campus protests, lawsuits, non-payment of increments, and accusations of caste and gender discrimination have led to an erosion of AUD’s brave new identity, minted 16 years ago – the year it was founded. AUD was interdisciplinary before it was fashionable, its courses were offbeat, and the exchange of progressive ideas was easy. It was meant to be a campus of free, out-of-the-box pedagogy, and an opportunity to fashion a new kind of public university culture in India. Now, professors are fleeing, and students say they have been shortchanged….