The JNU Free Speech Controversy-2

This is a continuation of my previous post about free speech in JNU.  As I mentioned there, Happymon Jacob and A.K. Ramakrishnan, both colleagues at the School of International Studies, JNU, wrote recently in the India Express about threats to free speech in Indian universities.  They argued that what was happening to JNU was part of a pattern and that the very idea of the university was under attack.  This was rich, I thought, considering that the Left has hardly a great record as defenders of free speech.  I wrote a response to their essay and send it to the Indian Express immediately but since Indian Express has not published it, I am posting it here in full. 

JNU and the Myth of Academic Freedom

Two of my esteemed colleagues from JNU argued in these pages a few days back (Happymon Jacob and AK Ramakrishnan, “There’s A Cop in My Class”, February 27, 2016) that the very idea of the university is under threat from the BJP government, that the attack on JNU is part of larger attack on “academic spaces and intellectual freedom”.  I hold no brief for the BJP government, and I fully support the right to free speech, especially when it is speech with which I disagree (such as some of slogans that were shouted in JNU on February 9). 


But it is important to point out that academic freedom and free speech is threatened not just by the State but also by the oppressiveness of one dominant ideology in the academy.  JNU itself is the best example.  When the academia itself practices ideological oppression and suppresses free speech and debate, we lose some of our moral heft in challenging State interference.  This is the fundamental problem with their argument: it is difficult to take their concern about academic freedom seriously when such academic freedom existed only for one side of the argument to begin with.  The Left dominates the academic discourse in India, which is not by itself a problem – but it becomes one when this dominance is used to stifle alternative voices and perspectives. 

Want some examples? Just go to the YouTube videos of the teach-in on nationalism that took place in JNU, where you will find plenty of criticisms of nationalism in general and ideas of Indian nationalism in particular.  What is striking about it is the complete absence of any views defending the idea of the Indian nation, especially in the context of a world of nations.  Even more remarkable is that this is so normal that I have yet to see one comment about this ideological whitewash.  Questioning the idea of a world divided into nations and its reproduction domestically in India is perfectly justified, of course.  What is not justified and is indeed ‘unacademic’ is the complete absence of any alternative viewpoints.  What was being taught in this teach-in was only one side of the argument and it is emblematic of the Left’s ideological dominance in JNU and the Indian academia in general, not free debate or speech. 

The problem goes beyond posturing in public lectures and has serious pedagogical consequences.  For example, there has been an active campaign to limit the study of Israel in JNU’s School of International Studies.  Ironically, one of the authors of the essay belongs to a department that has successfully prevented an MA course on Israel from being offered, despite large numbers of students endorsing a written appeal for the course.  Similarly, the Israeli Ambassador was prevented from addressing students on campus.  Refusing to listen to opinions you disagree with robs students of the opportunities to get all sides of the debate.  It also belies claims of ‘free debate’. 

The dominant Left’s silences are also equally significant.  Those now crying hoarse over free speech on campus were nowhere to be found on the Charlie Hebdo issue.  A JNU Left community that protests on issues all over the world found little time to defend free speech then, suggesting that what is meant by free speech is only their right to speech, not the principle itself. 

So prevalent is this ideological dominance that anyone outside of this dominant ideological consensus has to think several times before challenging it, leading to a form of academic self-censorship.  Would I want to go to the trouble of inviting a speaker if s/he is going to be prevented from speaking?  Should I offer a new course if it requires me to engage in an extended multi-year fight with my own colleagues?  Or should I spend the time instead in writing another article or book which, thankfully, my colleagues (still) cannot stop? 

Those now claiming to protect the academia’s and JNU’s tradition of ‘debate and challenge’ are speaking for an ideological majority within the campus and they are no less oppressive than the Indian State.  That they are fighting the State does not give them the license to practice an even more insidious academic oppression within and even more importantly, whitewash out of existence views with which they disagree.  State interference in academic freedom should be opposed.  Unfortunately, this hypocrisy makes it more difficult.