Indian Universities, Student Politics and the Government of India

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

The Newspapers in India are carrying real time coverage of the crisis that has gripped Indian Institutions of Higher Education. As a Faculty Member of a Central University with 32 years of Teaching Research and Administration with a PhD from a Global Top 200 Universites of the World I have a few points to make. My 2 cents worth, if you like.

First, Universites like New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University have been encouraged by successive Congress regimes for purely political and dynastic political ends. There has been a trend in JNU to hire its own students and this in breeding amongst the Faculty has contributed to the erosion of diversity and an over representation of certain ideological strands that fare poorly in the electoral battlefield. As the fortunes of the Left declined the radicalism of the Student population repalced the earlier political programme of reaching out to broarder sections of the population: Class analysis was replaced by Identity politics and the rampant mobilization of the youth along identity lines contributes significantly to the present scenario. Identity Politics was the American Social Science respone to Class Radicalisation and was promoted by the American Think Tanks like Fullbright and Ford Founedation in India throughout the 1970s, 80n and well into the early part of the present century. In India it is easy to trnaslate Indentiy Politics into political programmes especially after the introduction of the Mandal Reservation by V P Singh ; Caste, Religion and Gender are now the main stay of Indian Social Science education and research and students socialised in this kind of education fall easy prey to political parties which seek to use Universities as boot camps for their cadre.

In JNU, Jadhavpur University and in other Universites the youth have been incited to join the protests on the Citizenship Ammendment Act on the basis of the false propaganda that a section of the INdian population will lose its citizenship or will be denied certain rights. Nothing can be more untrue. But fascist methods of propaganda are successful: If a lie is repeated over and over again it will be beleived. In this issue the insecurities of the Moslem population is being preyed upon to mobilize them against the Act which in no way abridges or reduced their status or rights. Such identity based mobilization is dangerous and has to be faught against.

The Governance of Indian Universites, with exceptions, leave much to be desired. There is total confusion as far as the Rights of the Universities are concerned. Each University is Governed by a separate Legislation and Central Universities State Universities and now incresingly Private Universitiesd are all competing for funds from a reducing basket of resources and so the Ranking System has been introduced\, Called the National Institution Ranking Framework (NIRF) this system is neither transparent nor credible. Annamalai University generally regarded as a University in which Ph D degrees are managed, ranks very high to other Central Universities. The adoption of the API scoring pattern for Faculty promotion has led to the proliferation of predatory jouranlas and third rate teachers have been promoted on the basis of third rate publications. The Indian Government is notorious for introducing remedies which compound the disease. It is time to delink Research from Teaching and what goes on in Social Science in the name of reseach is just gargabe.

The Student bodies of most UNiversities is highlympolitisised and this leads to confrontation. Political parties of all colours--Saffron and Red and of course Green--use studnets as fodder in their political game of one upmanship and this is playing out in Indian Universities today. Vice Chancellors are not able to function as the politcal parties pull them in different direction. Professor Jagdeesh Kumar has dealt with the crisis in JNU in the best ammer possible and even after the Server Room was trashed perhaps by SFI Students he did not rush to the police. It is for political parties to rtake a call and reduce tensions.

Finally it is tiem to thinkl of solutions. Social Scince education must be reformed and crass Identity Politics under pinnings must be remeoved. Social Science education must be made meaningful and employment oriented and that Education must be  yoked to the New India that is emerging: Digital India, Skill India, Make in India, Entrepenueship, trining in GIS etc.

I am sure that all this will be done.

History Men: Jadunath Sarkar, G. S. Sardesai, Raghubir Sinh and their Quest for India's Past: A Review

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

History Men: Jadunath Sarkar, G. S Sardesai, Raghubir Sinh and their Quest for India's Past\
T C A Raghavan
New Delhi: Harper Collins, 2019

Dr T C A Raghavan, a noted diplomat, historian and public intelelctual has written an outstanding book which covers the territory upon which Dipesh Chakravarthy has grazed in his Calling of History. Charkavarthy was concerned only with the writings of Sir Jadunath Sarkar, Ragavan has traversed a much larger chunk of Historiography. He has situated his examination of the three historians whose work he has analysed in great depth, at the intersection of their individual lives, their collaboration in the pursuit of historical documents and the deep personal bonds of friendship that bound them. Their quest for India's past took them to remote villages, towns and cities all over North India and Mahrashtra and thye uncovered significant troves of historical material which were carefully edited and published. All three of the scholars were pioneers in that they were historians who had to locate, collate and edit the documents on which their histories were based. And for the Maharatha Period and the Post Mughal Era this meant a mastery over a number of scripts and languages: Mahrathi, Persian, Arabic, French, Dutch and Portuguese. The three historians collaborated with each other as Dr Raghavan has shown in the most intensnse and academically fruitful manner. It is interesting to learn that Sir Jadunath Sarkar's reconstruction of the Battle of Panipat, 1761 was based on a contemporary record. The Hafta Anjuman a post Mughal history was located and used by Sarkar in his Fall of the Mughal Empire.

The History Men is an important work of historiography as it deals with the intellectual climate in which Indians began to explore their past. This quest was particularly difficult as it coincided with two very huge popular movements: the Freedom Movement and the Partition Movement, both at times collaborating and at times confronting each other. Politically the times were charged with the high voltage current of identity politics, the Moslem and Hindu one aimed at carving a holemand for the Muslims and the other aimed at preserving the unity and integrity of India as a nation and Civilization. Sir Jadunath Sarkar himelf was a victim of the Partion Movement as his eledest son was killed in the riots. And as Raghavan points out he did not recover from this tragedy. The substantial work of Sir Jadunath revolved around Aurangazeb and his reign. His five volume History of Aurangazeb was based on the original letters and Court Documents which were located in Jaipur, Gwalior and other places. Sarkar used the court documents judicially and his account of the rise of the Maharathas as the most powerful challengers to the hegemony of the Mughals was essentially an analysis of Mahratha documents. The collaboration with G S Sardesai was important as Sarkar though conversant with Modi had his transcripts of the Mahrati documents checked by Sardesai.

In his Shivaji and His Times, Sarkar provided a balanced and nuanced account of Sivaji but the Poona Scholars associated with the Ithihasa Samshodaka Mandala like Rajwade were quite hostile to the work. Raghavan expalins the hostility as stemming from the intrusion of a Bengali in Mahrashtra and its history at a time when the cult around Shivaji was becoming the defining element in the identity of Maharashtrians. There is also the growing assertion of a caste identity during this time and Shivaji and his legacy were deeply contested. Rughubir Sinh, the scion of the Sitamau Princely State located in Malwa wrote his D Phil thesis on Malwa in Transition a work which was much appreciated by Sarkar. Later Raghubir Sinh became a memmber of the Lok Sabha and served two terms and established a Research Institute at Sitmau.

Raghavan has done a splendid job in ressurecting the memory and contribution of these early pioneers of Indian Historiography. One of the unfortunate developments of post Independence Era was the appropriation of Indian History by an ideologically committed group of historians, some would even say cabal of histry peddlers, who with the patronage of the Indian State drove these pioneers into obvlivion. Their pamphlet Communalism and the Writing of Indian History published by the Peoples' Publishing House became the manifesto for a kind of History thatn pitted Historians into hostile camps. Anyone disagreeing with the High Priets of the New Creed was  "Communal" :\"Reactionary" "Anti Modern" etc. The climate of free and dispassionate reconstruction of the past was vitiated by the personality clash betwee the pioneers like Sarkar, Sardesai, Majumdhar, Nilakanta Sastri, H C Ray chowdhury and others with Mohammad Habib and later his son and successor, Irfan Habib. That this clash has not ended is made amply clear in the recent public brawl in which Irfan Habib prevented the Governor of Kerala from continuing with his Speech. An ugly episode which would have been unthinkable in the civilzed days of Sarkar and friends.