With its fortunes buttressed after the recent Assembly elections ~ only Punjab said, ‘No’ ~ the Bharatiya Janata Party has now embarked on an overdose of saffronisation, of a kind that goes beyond the detoxification of historical texts and faculty appointments. Through the regulatory authority called the University Grants Commission, the NDA government intends to stop funding research centres, pre-eminently in JNU, that specialise in conducting research on social discrimination ~ a malaise that has been pronounced in recent times. In the net, the Centre proposes to decide on what not to study. A more revolting intervention in matters academic would be hard to imagine. While facts ought ideally to be based on empirical evidence, interpretation of social history is a matter of subjective reflection. We do not know whether the government intends to protect the study of the “Brahminical social order”… to the exclusion of other class groups. Yet we do know that the BJP’s praxis of teaching and conducting research on social history ~ from ancient India to the contemporary ~ is perilously skewed and, as often as not to the point of persecution… when not suicides as in the Central University of Hyderabad and most recently at Jawaharlal Nehru University. The disconnect is stark. While the UGC has of late been funding courses on Vedic studies, it has simultaneously emitted a disconcerting signal to the universities, specifically that funds are set to be stopped for intensive studies on Dalits, social exclusion, and such inclusive policies as reservation. In a word, the proposal knocks the bottom out of the philosophy of Dr BR Ambedkar. The UGC will stop funding to these centres once the 12th Plan ends on 31 March, if its letter to the universities is any indication.

These research centres perform a dual function. While they provide an impetus to the advancement of learning, they do create a database on the marginalised groups… thus facilitating (at least theoretically) remedial action by governments both at the Centre and in  the states. It is more than obvious that the UGC has taken a bow in the direction of the BJP government’s gallery; the “joint initiative” flies in the face of academic certitudes. There is a distinct preference for the selective rather than a holistic study of history and sociology, indeed a certain selectivity that will be subject to saffronite lights. Midway through the research programmes, the centres have been left in the lurch for the “compelling” reason that they tend to question the hierarchical Brahminical social order. It is an ominous trend if the government pursues its political agenda through an academic entity called the University Grants Commission. Will caste determine the pursuit of academics? Pray why? This is India where Uttar Pradesh boasts a rabidly communalist Chief Minister.