Opinion Ministry of control

The row that has erupted over the resignation of IIT Delhi director R.K. Shevgaonkar, two years before his term was due to expire, seems distressingly familiar. Officially, Shevgaonkar is said to have quit for “personal reasons”, and the human resource development ministry has vehemently denied that it brought pressure on him to resign. But the HRD ministry’s recent record invites suspicions of meddling. In this case, the ministry has instituted an inquiry into the allegation that the IIT Delhi director violated the IIT Act by helping to set up the International Institute of Technology Research Academy (IITRA) in Mauritius. But according to M. Balakrishnan, who was deputy director, faculty, when IITRA was initiated and who wrote in these columns last week, the ministry had earlier approved the final MoU. The ongoing conjecture and speculation hurts the reputation of one of India’s most valuable higher education brands. If it is to contain the damage, the HRD ministry must explain itself.

Questions of institutional autonomy, or lack thereof, have bedevilled India’s education system for long. They predate the present government’s tenure. Yet, under Smriti Irani, the HRD ministry is emerging again as a magnet for controversy. Irani took office just as the University Grants Commission’s squabble with Delhi University over the latter’s four-year undergraduate programme (FYUP) erupted into an all-out brawl. The UGC’s about-turn from its own tacit endorsement of the FYUP under the UPA seemed to confirm the suspicion that the HRD ministry was, in fact, pulling the strings. After emerging victorious in this face-off, an emboldened UGC rushed into another altercation, this time with the IITs, over whose degrees it now claims jurisdiction. Concerns over academic freedom have only been sharpened by reports that Irani has held consultations with Sangh Parivar leaders and its education wings.

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There have been other missteps: the cavalier mid-term scrapping of German in Kendriya Vidyalaya schools, for instance, and the controversy around the resignation of National Council for Education Research and Training director Parvin Sinclair halfway into her five-year tenure. After years of neglect and inertia, there was hope that an energetic new government and minister might kickstart the process of education reform. Instead, this latest face-off between IIT and the HRD ministry seems emblematic of a seven-month tenure marked by avoidable confrontations and questionable choices.