Ali Khan Mahmudabad's arrest: At private universities, the promise of academic freedom belied
Academic freedom (or lack of it) across India's educational institutes has been a matter of discussion for some time. Unfortunately, our rank in the Academic Freedom Index, developed by the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute, based at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, is 179. What is also alarming is the gradual decline of this score. Educators seem to exercise a lot of self-censorship both within and outside the classroom. Online classes, recordings of lectures and even students are mostly viewed as potential 'risk hazards'. The fear of 'going viral' for something that we might have said in the classroom makes us more aware than we should be in a free academic environment.
Initially, the lack of academic freedom was seen as an exclusive trait of public universities, where the state's involvement often acted as a deterrent. Against this backdrop, the newly emerged private universities like Ashoka University, Shiv Nadar University and O. P. Jindal Global University, to name a few, became an accommodating space for critical studies and discussions. Notably, all of these universities are known for charging exorbitant fees. Several well-known academics left public universities to join these emerging spaces. Many thought that negotiating academic freedom in these alternative spaces would be easier. Beyond the security and safety that a government job offers, the aspirations and hopes surrounding these private universities were significant.
The recent arrest of Ashoka University professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad and the subsequent distancing of the university administration from the faculty member show that private universities are no better when it comes to academic freedom. One may argue that the university did not take any action against Mahmudabad for expressing his personal opinion on social media. But its distancing says a lot. In its carefully crafted statement, the university authority said, 'They do not represent the opinion of the university', adding that they would 'continue to cooperate with the Police and local authorities in the investigation, fully.'
This is not the only time when a private university has deserted its employees. Ashoka University has distanced itself many times in the past — Rajendran Narayanan, Pratap Bhanu Mehta and Arvind Subramanian are some prominent names on the list.
This is not to say that the space of solidarity has disappeared, but it has shrunk. Faculties and students globally have come out in support of these academics, including Mahmudabad. However, it cannot absolve the university of its responsibility to stand by its faculty to uphold academic freedom.
The hypocrisy of these universities gets exposed further when they thrive on their faculty's successes but do not offer support during their tough times. In these universities, the use of social media by faculty members is never discouraged. Rather, they are expected to share updates about their achievements, like recent publications and research grants. University handles are also happy to share and glorify these profiles to attract students. But if their academic engagement invites the government's wrath, they prefer silence or distancing.
Private universities are exclusionary by their very design. Only people of a certain economic class can afford them. In many of these places, no affirmative action is followed either in students' admission or in teachers' recruitment. The aspiration of academic freedom is a major factor in making them thrive.
As private universities fail in this most fundamental aspect, it is high time to rebuild public universities and make them spaces for critical academic debate and discussions.
The writer teaches Sociology in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Guwahati
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The Print
10 hours ago
- The Print
Dear Sanjeev Bikhchandani, supporting Prof Mahmudabad is a matter of morality, not activism
Recently, I read your response to an alumnus of Ashoka University published in ThePrint. It is one thing to evade some issues for practical reasons and strategic concerns, but making that into a position paper, setting a certain precedent is a very different matter altogether. Hence, I feel there is something to be discussed here. My first memory of you is when you were addressing the first-year assembly at your alma mater and my workplace, St. Stephen's College, almost one-and-a-half decades ago. I have heard of and seen your support to the college, while also been a beneficiary of your positive responses to communications as a member of the college faculty. Let us look at the immediate concern: Ashoka professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad put up a Facebook post against terrorism of all kinds. Was it polarising and hateful? Did it attack the Indian Armed Forces at a time when a war between India and Pakistan was potentially looming large? I couldn't find anything against institutional interests, constitutional values or human rights in his post. Had you – the Ashoka administration – found anything problematic, your distancing yourself from his post would have been quite understandable. I couldn't find proof of that in your letter to the alumnus. Did Mahmudabad's post end up 'offending a whole bunch of people'? It must have, but then critical thinking (that one defining characteristic of liberal universities, as per the Google AI response in your letter) doesn't allow us to join the bandwagon of the feelings of a 'whole lot of people'. Does it? Some unanswered questions You call the faculty, students, alumni, and workers, including the founders, the 'Ashoka community'. One member of that community is remanded. Whatever the issue is, don't you have the responsibility to make sure he or she gets legal support, and work for the sustenance of an ambience in which his/her rights are protected? Wouldn't that be a position of institutional morality? Surely, the university shouldn't meddle with the legal processes. But providing legal support doesn't mean you support the views of the faculty or the student concerned. It only means you are trying to stand together as a community. The atmosphere of fear, which makes us avoidants in attending to certain duties of the community, will eventually make us shrink both individually and collectively. Isn't that concerning? I felt you avoided answering these specific questions by invoking larger, abstract questions of activism in a liberal university. Student collectives in universities have behaved in differently in three phases: when aristocratic young people were sent to medieval universities, they ganged up, created trouble, and ended up fighting with the local people – the infamous 'town and gown' quarrels that are associated with European universities in the Middle Ages. But the religious scholarship took a scientific turn through conflicts in the 17th century. Later, in the early 20th century, students supported the ruling establishment, famously in defeating Britain's 1926 General Strike and and in siding with Hitler in Germany. The anti-establishment common sense of universities is a thing of the '60s: female, coloured, lower-class, and minority students entering the previously guarded space of higher education en masse had a major role to play in it. They opposed capitalism where capitalism ruled, resisted communism in Eastern Europe where communism was in power, delegitimised the Cold War world order, brought out the limitations of socialist rhetoric of upper caste-dominant countries like India and formulated a new set of values for political rhetoric and academic inquiry. Essentialising liberal universities as activist in nature is not historically tenable. Universities have also never worked as per the intentions of their founders: the British government started colleges to produce clerks but the institutions became hotbeds of anti-colonial movements; Indira Gandhi's biggest academic investment, JNU, became a severe headache for her in a matter of six years. This is no surprise given the world does transform in ways we do not anticipate and universities are powerful ingredients and products of that process. In building a university, the community accumulates a culture beyond the topical and the immediate. But through all these phases, universities have been seen as critical habitats of ideation –spaces that gathered, stored, and disseminated those ideas – and produced new ideas and frames in the process. Both under monarchy and democracy, universities have come up with conversations, discussions and devices that caused paradigm shifts in the way we conduct our lives because there was a space in which people were able to actualise themselves. So, every university has had a need to establish communities that allow individuals to be ethically themselves and confident in their academic journey through life. Universities don't compulsorily have to be liberal – they could be neo-liberal or even conservative. But what it can't do is to say it's not a community. Creating a sense of belonging – not the university belonging to us but we belonging to the university – is central, would you not agree? Also read: There's a gap between what Ali Khan Mahmudabad said and what he's accused of—basic literacy Public and private institutions Ashoka University is a private university, and there is a school of thought that universities are best organised only in the public sphere. I have a different point of view. Given the huge leaps in technology and the very redefinitions of what it is to be human, a number of innovations are best done in private. For example, the Centre for Writing and Communication of Ashoka University is an effective and interesting innovation. Given the centre's structure and the numbers they have to deal with, a public university cannot do so and integrate new generational wisdom so easily. The idea of demonetising public universities to support private ones is not just dangerous but also completely impractical: Ashoka, given its financial requirements, cannot replace public universities. While one needs to be highly critical of the cynical heedlessness that public university leaders sitting in the executive and academic councils have been showing, it cannot be blamed on private entrepreneurs. That is another matter altogether. Without that, public and private universities can co-exist, compete, and even collaborate. A significant population of India has seen their financial condition improve in the last 20-25 years and private universities are one way to access that wealth. Academic orientation can function as a tributary in the field of art, nation-building, and knowledge production. Universities are spaces where people not only get degrees but acquire skills, develop perspectives, and learn to collectivise. While your initiative to start Ashoka University is appreciable, your translation of the current problem is potentially debilitating to the very possibilities a university promises. Lastly, a disagreement: St. Stephen's College had a very strong legacy of student activism – from CF Andrews, who taught at the college, raising his voice against British rule, to the women-led movements of the 2010s for equality and constitutional rights, especially the anti-CAA protests. You studied in a publicly funded college. You had enough sense of belongingness to come back and continue your engagement with the community. It is a function of its institutional value that prompts such an act. Do Indian private universities want such a possibility, of being a space of tomorrow, in another 20-30 years, seems to be the question that lingers on in this whole episode. Warmly, Ashley The author teaches English at St. Stephen's College, Delhi University. He tweets @NPAshley2. Views are personal. (Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)
The Print
a day ago
- The Print
Ashoka University began as a bold promise. Sanjeev Bikhchandani has diminished it
To this day, I continue to defend this experiment. Building an institution from scratch, and one that demonstrates academic rigor and draws in talent to one of the most unlikely places, is no small feat. This is too often overlooked, and it feels insincere not to acknowledge Ashoka's achievements, given the scale of the undertaking. Critics often argue that Ashoka is destined to fail because it aspires to be an alternative to India's public education system, caught between private ownership and the ability to uphold the public good. But that framing is incomplete—and, in my opinion, conveniently distracting from some surprising areas of success. I was a student there for a year, from 2017 to 2018, enrolled in the Young India Fellowship— a postgraduate liberal arts programme, which predates the founding of the university. I arrived from the predictably arcane academic training at the University of Delhi. I was supported by considerable need-based financial aid, and found myself in rural Sonepat, at a liberal arts university. Luxuries come at luxurious prices, and that surprises no one. But, I felt that the library, the rigorous critical writing program, and the top-tier faculty alone had already exceeded the value I had paid. The concept of this university seemed novel because it was. An experiment can fail again and again before it succeeds—but something deliberated to fail is bound to be a failure. Ashoka University began as a bold promise in 2014, the same year India placed its hopes in a new administration. Critics surfaced early, but the university's rising academic reputation, growing enrollment, and early successes across disciplines defied most skepticism. Its very success became a rebuttal to doubt over its model. Defending the promise Over the years, I have discussed where Ashoka's ideals have fallen short. Yet, I have also continuously defended it as an institution that was shaping new ideals of what private universities in India can be. Normatively, a state like India can, and should, invest in robust public education systems, while allowing private initiatives especially those like Ashoka, to set meaningful precedents. It only took surprisingly few years for Ashoka to demonstrate successful academic partnerships, research ecosystems, and institutional models. In my cohort, students came from many corners, from Madhubani to Sopore to Tirunelveli, and even as far as U.S. and Ireland. Many of them were mentored with care and intention, and went on to become award-winning journalists, filmmakers, and entrepreneurs. Often, these people came from circumstances that would never allow for escape velocity. To not acknowledge their individual accomplishments would be an act of insincerity. In similar breath, perhaps it is also imperative to acknowledge that many individual successes were thanks to the sustained interest and efforts of the founders of Ashoka University. 'The place seemed to be bubbling with intellectual ferment,' recalled Professor Pushpesh Pant in 2021, lamenting Ashoka's recent decline. While Ashoka may not have fully matched the liberal arts models of Western institutions it aspired to emulate—at least not immediately—it nevertheless became a credible and increasingly successful pipeline to those academic worlds. I myself went on to obtain a graduate degree from Harvard in 2024—a trajectory shaped in no small part by the foundation, and the gumption, that Ashoka provided. But there was a bubbling of another kind that had always existed. As Ashoka grew in prominence and intellectual engagement, it also cultivated students and faculty who actively embraced the values of liberal education. Students spoke out against gendered restrictions in hostels, raised concerns against occupational safety issues affecting campus workers, and most notably, protested the unjust exits of their professors. Some resignations in the university passed quietly. Others—such as those of Vice Chancellor Pratap Bhanu Mehta, former Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian, and economists Sabyasachi Das and Pulapre Balakrishnan, made national headlines. In parallel, we alumni were witnessing the fast churn of faculty members who had been central to our academic journeys. Faculty turnover is to be expected over the years, especially as many academics were guest faculty. But the sheer number of exits, and the untimely nature of many of them, gave the impression that an academic sanitation unit was quietly keeping vigil. Also read: What Ashoka University founder wrote to ex-student on the Ali Khan Mahmudabad issue An arrest and a message In May 2025, Professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad, Chair of the Political Science Department, was arrested over a Facebook post that raised critical questions about militaristic nationalism in the wake of the terrorist attack in Pahalgam. It is worth noting that Prof. Mahmudabad did not speak against India's military response to Pakistan. Rather, he questioned the political framing of the event and voiced concerns on behalf of Indian Muslims. The questions were political because he is a political scientist studying those very groups. His detention has sparked outrage among hundreds of students and alumni, but Ashoka University has remained silent, refusing to publicly support him. Mr. Sanjeev Bikhchandani, one of the key founders of Ashoka, recently responded to an alumnus who had criticized the institution's silence following the arrest of Professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad. In what he himself describes as a 'cruel as it may be' response, Mr. Bikhchandani delivers a message that is, in fact, deeply cruel, both in tone and implications for Prof. Mahmudabad. He portrays Ashoka's students, alumni, and faculty, including Prof. Mahmudabad, as indulging in 'activism,' which he sharply distinguishes from a liberal arts education. He recalls a time in his liberal arts education when there was little to no activism. But since the 1960s, this has simply not been true of American liberal arts colleges and Ivy League universities—institutions Ashoka is modeled after. Liberal arts education centers on critical thinking, the questioning of dominant norms, and exposure to histories of oppression, inequality, and power. That naturally orients students toward social progressivism, if not always political radicalism. A high-performing higher education institution will, by design, produce elites who go on to shape business, politics, media, and the arts. And in the absence of any meaningful affirmative action, universities everywhere largely recycle elites rather than produce them from scratch. For the most part, this has also been true at Ashoka. But exceptions are truly exceptional, and I affirm this by experience. Dichotomy In liberal societies governed by liberal regimes, social progressivism often becomes the etiquette of the elite. Since World War II, many liberal norms have globalized. Whether it's Sciences Po in France, Ashoka in India, or Harvard in the U.S., these institutions produce graduates who are largely ideologically aligned—often embracing values like diversity, inclusion, and civic responsibility. And when liberal regimes come under challenge, universities with contrasting or critical scholarship often bear the brunt. Historical moments may sometimes bring this tension to the fore and sometimes not, but such is the pattern. I decided to write this essay because I was thoroughly disappointed by how Mr. Bikhchandani diminished the very promise that Ashoka created. He deigns the purpose of a university and lowers the vision that defined Ashoka. It is tragic, that the university professors, committed to the idea of Ashoka, find themselves having to carefully explain to its founders that what they have built is too large, too vital, and too promising to be abandoned or diminished. Mr. Bikhchandani claims that activism and liberal arts education are not 'joined at the hip.' To support this, he turns to Google, asking: 'Are all liberal arts universities activist in nature?' and then builds his stance on the AI-generated response. His appeal is not to academic tradition, historical precedent, or lived experience, but to artificial intelligence. Yet it is the very prompt he uses that betrays a crisis of imagination. He is being asked about moral courage, about the university's role in moments of political repression—and instead he answers a question that was not asked: whether all liberal arts institutions are, by definition, activist. What is the syllogism here? Even if activism and liberal arts are not synonymous, they are hardly unrelated. Liberal arts education—by its very structure—cultivates critical thinking, dissent, and moral inquiry. So yes, activism may not be mandatory, but it is certainly not alien to the tradition. 'The fundamental point I am making,' he continues, 'is that activism at Ashoka is a choice and it does not go with the territory. You can be a great liberal arts university and not be activist. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar.' Mr. Bikhchandani notably overlays his organizational analysis with that of Info Edge, the multi-sector conglomerate he founded. Since he speaks from life experience, and the experience of being a 'founder' of organizations in general, there may well be some hard-earned wisdom in his words. But drawing direct parallels between Ashoka University's obligations and those of corporations like Info Edge is a flawed analogy. Educational institutions have fundamentally different missions: they exist to foster critical inquiry, intellectual risk-taking, and societal engagement objectives that diverge sharply from corporate priorities like brand protection and regulatory compliance. Priorities may just converge on some organizational issues but Info Edge is not a university, let alone a private, liberal arts university. This is a categorical error of nearly all orders. He then continues: 'In the private sector, we generally stay away from what are termed as 'Politically Exposed Persons.' Should Ashoka have such a policy?' But the concept of 'Politically Exposed Persons' originates from financial regulation, intended to flag risks of corruption and bribery. It is not meant to refer to scholars whose entire academic compendium is devoted to the study of politics—like Professor Mahmudabad, a political scientist whose research focuses on Indian Muslims and the workings of state power. Do the founders of Ashoka not see the trap they are setting for scholars? Political science, and many other disciplines within the liberal arts, require engaging with contentious political realities. To penalize and abandon scholars for doing so is to undermine liberal arts. Ashoka University, the Enterprise I imagine the pressure to represent a university must be immense. University presidents today are being called upon to be braver—to act as a firewall between the wrath of unfavorable governments and the integrity of elite educational institutions. Obsequious behavior at the mere hint of political controversy, therefore, has not been well received by academic colleagues, alumni and students. Ramachandra Guha, who I first read at Ashoka, tweeted upon a controversy over an exit: 'In its journey thus far, Ashoka University had shown much promise. They may have frittered all that away by the spinelessness of their trustees, who have chosen to crawl when asked to bend.' And yet, given the disproportionately higher pressure placed on a small number of trustees, how can Ashoka respond tactfully and still ensure its survival? That is the real question many have asked, and few may have answered. Here, we must meet Mr. Bikhchandani with empathy, and offer him paths that do not demand heroism from him, but do insist on principle. At Harvard, I had the privilege of being Professor Steven Pinker's Teaching Fellow—an extraordinary opportunity to help teach his course Rationality, named after his bestselling book. That semester, in the wake of student protests, Dr. Pinker proposed a new policy emphasizing time, place, and manner restrictions on demonstrations. It was one of those issues I changed my mind about due to considerations of tact and respectability. It is a middle path between what many would call 'activism' and the enterprise of the university. The proposed policies were incorporated by Harvard in 2025, along with an institutional decision to not weigh in on controversial public policy matters. This, perhaps, is an option—tactful, principled, and always available to an institution like Ashoka University. Perhaps it can meet the 'activists' in the middle. Nonetheless, it is both imperative and tactful for Ashoka University The Enterprise to not hire political scientists who face ire for studying politics. Funding challenges are understandable. I have always acknowledged the quandaries and pressures that founders face. In his reply, Mr. Bikhchandani understandably emphasizes his frustrations. It takes immense effort to raise funds for a university. Critics may not fully grasp how difficult that work is and I, too, am far from ever having done it. But still, one must ask: how much money is really traded off when a few academics stand by principle? Is there some optimum point where ideals can safely be compromised? And doesn't political controversy, too, come at the cost of credibility, just a different kind of expense? Abandonment I wish to convey to Mr. Bikhchandani and the founders of Ashoka: what you have created is original, valuable, and deeply needed. Many, like me, are invested in its survival and growth. As Professor Amita Baviskar wrote of the founders and trustees: 'They failed to appreciate that the institution they started had acquired a life larger than their fears.' To articulate Ashoka's originality, one only needs to look at its name—drawn from Ashoka the Great, the Mauryan ruler. After witnessing the devastation of war, Emperor Ashoka turned toward non-violence, tolerance, and the pursuit of knowledge. A university bearing his name ought to have imagined itself as embodying that same spirit of inquiry, moral reckoning, and commitment to the greater good. My year at Ashoka was, in every way, exceptional—intellectually rigorous, emotionally expansive, and, at times, almost caricaturally enjoyable. What we are witnessing now is willful abandonment. And so I put the word abandonment next to the university I once graduated from—not because I abandoned it, but because it abandoned itself. It has strayed too far from the ideals it once aspired to, creating in the process an awkward, uncertain middle, neither brave enough to protect its scholars, nor honest enough to say it won't. In saying that Ashoka has abandoned itself, perhaps I am indulging in activism. I don't know if it was liberal arts or activism—those two things that are not joined at the hip. But I do know there was once a place where I studied Ambedkar, Hegel, Keynes, de Beauvoir, Gandhi, and Arendt. I made friends for life in a year that felt magical. I did not abandon it. It abandoned itself. This article was originally published on Kartikeya Bhatotia's Substack. The author is an alumnus of Ashoka University who writes on public policy. He tweets @bhatoti. Views are personal.
The Hindu
3 days ago
- The Hindu
Seriously discussed walking away, Ashoka University co-founder says amid row
Addressing the row over Ashoka University Professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad's controversial social media post on Operation Sindoor, Sanjeev Bikhchandani, co-founder of the institute, in an email to alumnus stated that he and his fellow co-founders had 'seriously discussed' the option of walking away from it. He was responding to an email from an anonymous alumnus, who had questioned the co-founder's stand on the row triggered by Mr. Mahmudabad's post and his subsequent arrest. Referring to the university's co-founders Pramath Raj Sinha and Ashish Dhawan in an internal email, Mr. Bhikchandani stated, 'Why don't you and other alumni offer to step in and take over? Pramath, Ashish, and I have seriously discussed the option of walking away. Ashoka is too much of a headache. Is it worth the effort? And you may not believe this, but money, even in this day and age, does not grow on trees but it still makes the world go round. Every rupee has to be sweated for.' Mr. Bhikchandani stated he was down with COVID-19 and further wrote, 'A political opinion expressed on Facebook or Twitter (X) or Instagram is not academic scholarship. Consequently, any public outcry about a political opinion an academic may express on social media is not an attack on academic freedom, even if the person expressing that opinion has a day job as an academic.' Had been feeling out of sorts for the last three days. Tested positive for Covid last evening. Went into isolation. A Sindhi friend in Mumbai had sent some Lolas. Feeling peckish at 5am I had half a Lola. I could not taste anything. Key learning - you know it is Covid when a… — Sanjeev Bikhchandani (@sbikh) June 1, 2025 Mr. Bhikchandani stated that the university is not obliged to support a person for the political opinions they express in their personal capacity.
