Gujarat Higher Education Council Bill 'sinister' move: Azad

Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad today criticised the Gujarat Higher Education Council Bill, saying it was a "sinister" move by the state government "to muzzle academic freedom and saffronise higher education".
"The Bill piloted by Higher and Technical Education Minister to grant sweeping powers to the state government is a sinister move to assail the academic freedom under the cloak of introducing reforms and maintaining standards.
"It is a diabolical attempt to muzzle academic freedom and curtail functional autonomy," the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha said.
Urging the Gujarat Governor not to grant assent to the "ill-conceived" Bill, Azad said it is both "retrograde' and "dangerous" as on one hand, it will hamper the progress and development of higher education and on the other, it will promote "the dangerous agenda of BJP and sangh parivar to saffronise higher education".

"Academic freedom and free flow of ideas and thoughts is the heart and soul of university education and any attempt to tinker with this fundamental premise will be an assault on the very notion of universities being an abode for 'adventure of ideas' as propounded by our first Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru," he said.
He also pointed toward the "brazen interference" of the Union HRD Ministry in the functioning of central universities and institutes of excellence like IITs, IIMs. "Now this pernicious agenda is being transmitted to the states ruled by BJP," he alleged.