Listen to this article:

India has long been known for the vitality of its scientific community. In the social sciences, its remarkable creativity had made it a major player in some of the most stimulating international debates. The country has also sent its intellectuals to some of the world’s top universities. This dynamism is now deeply affected by attacks on academic freedom, as evidenced by two distinct sources of information. First, the Academic Freedom Index (AFI) shows that, while India’s record in this area was relatively good until 1990, it declined thereafter before beginning a precipitous fall starting in 2014. Since then, India has scored well below the global average and currently ranks among the bottom 10–20% of countries, a category where it stands alongside Russia and Rwanda, barely ahead of North Korea and Afghanistan, and below Vietnam and Hungary.

The second indicator rich in information for our discussion is none other than the index from the Scholars at Risk network’s Academic Freedom Monitoring Project, which annually documents cases of restrictions on academic freedom: Union government takeover of universities that are in principle under the jurisdiction of federal states, the use of public funding to extend state power over the scientific community, bans on peaceful demonstrations on campuses, and the use of force by police against students demonstrating peacefully, restrictions imposed on university research, the suppression of opinions critical of governments, etc. Between 2014 and 2024, India’s Academic Freedom Index score fell by more than half, placing the country in the category of nations where academic freedom is deemed “completely restricted”.

If we now compare the results of the Academic Freedom Index with those of the Democracy Index – both part of the V-Dem project – we see a strong correlation between the decline in academic freedom and democratic backsliding. Until 2018, the Democracy Index classified India as a “liberal democracy.” It was then downgraded to the rank of “electoral democracy” before joining the group of “electoral autocracies,” a position it has held for six years now. The V-Dem report also highlights a correlation between the decline in academic freedom and the political and social polarisation that has been growing in the country in a harmful manner since 2014.

This trajectory can of course be explained by the rise to power of Hindu nationalism, a movement also known as the “Sangh Parivar”, the family of the Sangh because its matrix, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS – Association of national volunteers) has not only created a political party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (Indian People’s Party) which won the general elections in 2014, but also a trade union, a student union, a peasant union and a myriad of other organisations. 

Also read: Between Blasphemy and Contempt: NCERT, Judicial Accountability and Educational Freedom

In the first two parts of this article, I will analyse the increasing number of infringements on academic freedom since 2014, using concrete examples from the public as well as private systems. In the third part, I’ll examine the ideological dimension of the problem, which is finding expression in the promotion of a nationalist mentality at the expense of the scientific mindset. Finally, I’ll turn to the mobilisation of those who try to resist.

1. Public Institutions in the Eye of the Storm

The first target of Hindu nationalists after Narendra Modi came to power in 2014 was Jawaharlal Nehru University, the flagship of India’s public university system. Founded in 1969 in New Delhi, JNU has for decades conducted ambitious interdisciplinary research programmes, particularly on Indian society and its transformations, with a commitment to opening its doors to students from all regions of India and all social backgrounds. Topping the rankings of social science universities, it still enjoys an excellent international reputation. 

But in recent years, a smear campaign orchestrated by the Hindu nationalist movement has served as a pretext for the government to crack down on academic freedom there. In 2016, the government appointed Jagadish Kumar, a man close to Vijana Bharati (the RSS’s organisation of teachers and researchers), as the VC. This appointment sparked a wave of protests on campus and led to the arrest of several students for participating in so-called “antinational” activities. Ideological orientation has become the primary criterion used by the authorities to identify allies and enemies among faculty and students. In terms of hiring, this has resulted in the appointment of faculty members recognised less for the quality of their work than for their political affiliations.

The independence of certain committees involved in JNU’s administration, such as the Academic Council and the Executive Council, has also eroded, and faculty and student organisations (formally represented on these committees) have been excluded from certain meetings. The established procedures for appointing department heads have also been flouted. Some faculty members, after protesting against arbitrary administrative decisions, have faced reprisals in the form of the cancellation or suspension of sabbaticals, research funding, or retirement pensions, leading to numerous legal challenges. At the end of his term, Jagadish Kumar was appointed chairman of the University Grants Commission, thereby further expanding his sphere of influence.

When teachers and students tried to react (by means of a referendum calling for the resignation of the VC, for example), they suffered reprisals in many forms. The former had their salaries suspended or their requests for early retirement rejected, steps that led to endless legal proceedings. The latter were hit harder by repression when they tried to organise meetings or film screenings denouncing the actions of Hindu nationalists in Kashmir or elsewhere in India.

In February 2016, for example, the police stormed the campus to break up a demonstration organised by the student union on the pretext that pro-Pakistan slogans had been chanted, which turned out to be false information. Smriti Irani, the Minister of Human Resource Development, who oversaw JNU as well as all national universities, added that “the nation cannot tolerate the slightest insult to Mother India“.

Several other public universities were affected in a similar manner. After the process for appointing its leaders was altered at the expense of the autonomy this venerable institution had previously enjoyed, the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (an entity fully funded by the government and the UGC) set out to restrict political activism by requiring all students to sign a “code of honour” prohibiting them from participating in political debates, sit-ins, and “unpatriotic” or “anti-establishment” (sic), with anyone violating this code facing expulsion. 

One doctoral student was thus handed a two-year suspension for participating in a demonstration outside parliament. At Ambedkar University in Delhi, demands to conform to certain principles perceived by faculty members as ideological triggered a mass exodus among them. In April 2025, Dalit and Muslim students were expelled for protesting the administrative mishandling of a harassment case that led to a suicide attempt.

Other public institutions are affected, such........

© The Wire