It is an eloquent comment on the deplorable state of the country’s higher education system that Visva Bharati, a central university founded by none else than India’s first Nobel laureate Rabindra Nath Tagore, was allowed to remain shut for about six weeks from September 24. Worse, neither the education ministry at the Centre nor the government of West Bengal, where the university is located, intervened in any constructive manner to defuse the crisis. At the centre of the controversy was the university’s vice-chancellor (VC), Rajat Kanta Ray, an academician of repute. The striking employees and teachers had alleged corruption, financial mismanagement and nepotism in a few of the decisions Mr Ray had taken. The VC’s response to these charges was to call for an external inquiry not only into the allegations against his conduct, but also into the “activities” of some of the workers. That stirred up the proverbial hornet’s nest, as the employees and teachers were comfortable with an inquiry into the VC’s decisions, but had deep reservations against a similar probe into their activities.
Indeed, Mr Ray’s decision to link an inquiry into charges against his decisions with that into the employees’ actions will remain a subject matter of debate for a long time to come. But the absence of any meaningful intervention by either the state government (the governor of West Bengal is the rector of Visva Bharati) or the Centre, too, was an open invitation to political trouble, soon converting the campus into a playground for politicians. Local leaders from the Congress, the Trinamool Congress and the CPI-M came out in support of the striking employees. What started out as an administrative problem became a hotly contested political issue over the choice of the VC and the manner in which he was running the institution. That the university reopened last Thursday only after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is also the university’s chancellor, issued a call to the striking employees to return to work, is an indication that Visva Bharati’s problems are far from over. In other words, Tagore’s “abode of peace” may further degenerate into an abode of political battles, which after the VC’s recent meetings with the prime minister and a senior Congress minister may only intensify and even harden the stance of the CPI-M and Trinamool activists on the university campus.
For the Union government, the lesson from Visva Bharati’s problems is even more significant. Politicisation of the higher education system is a disease that has already grown deep roots in this country. The rising influence of Alimuddin Street, the CPI-M headquarters in Kolkata, over the manner in which universities are run in West Bengal is as harmful as the way in which the Indian Institutes of Management and the Indian Institutes of Technology have suffered on account of the whimsical views and controls exercised by the past few governments at the Centre. The time is ripe to take the reins of higher education away from politicians and hand them over to an independent regulatory body. However, the University Grants Commission (UGC), set up to provide funds as well as maintain standards in institutions of higher education, is in dire need of an overhaul. It has also been argued that the powers of regulating academic standards and providing funds to institutions of higher education should not vest in the same body. There is, therefore, a case for splitting UGC’s responsibilities and the government can scarcely delay taking such decisions. The government’s plan to set up 14 new central universities is a laudable exercise. But without an efficient and effective regulatory framework in place, such a grand plan may end up creating a few more abodes of political turmoil.
