When Amartya Sen resigned from the Chancellorship of Nalanda University, he could plausibly claim to have been pushed out by the ruling party. This was because Nalanda was under the Central Government. Still, neither Sen's, nor his Singaporean successor's resignations created any negative feedback. Why? People understood that Nalanda was a White Elephant. Still, Sen's reputation didn't suffer because he hadn't actually been foolish enough to relocate there.
By contrast, when Pratap Bhanu Mehta & Arvind Subramanian resign from a private institution all they can claim is that they had been cheated by a bunch of businessmen which claimed to be creating a 'liberal arts' college of the American type where academic freedom- i.e. tenure- would be guaranteed. But all this proves is that Ashoka University is a scam. Its students suggest that the College wants to get hold of some Government land and instead of simply paying for it, like everybody else, has taken the bizarre course of booting out Professors in the belief that corrupt officials care about shite like that.
Thus, what we have here is a fraud perpetrated by a private College of a type which Indian students are increasingly wary of. Mehta and Subramanian were fools to fall for it. Apparently, both went to rural Haryana regularly- unlike Sen who avoided Rajgir like the plague. How could they have been so stupid?
It seems there are 90 more members of the faculty who, if they don't resign, are part of that fraud. The students have been swindled. Their peers are laughing at them. They paid a lot of money to go to a private College because they could not get into Delhi University. Then Mehta and Subramanian and 90 faculty members came out and said 'this place is shit. It is so fucking stupid that it boots out Professors in the belief that this will magically cause land to be given to it at concessionary rates.'
If such indeed were the case everybody would set up Colleges and hire and then immediately fire some shithead like Mehta or Guha or Apoorvanand. This is because everybody wants land in Haryana.
There are plenty of Central Universities which have tenured Professors who shit upon the BJP. In general, they profit by doing so. Why is Ashoka- a private venture- in the news for persecuting opponents of the Government? I suppose, Leftists will say 'Neoliberalism is to blame. A Capitalist venture must necessarily be Fascist.' But, this means that stupid but rich kids who can't get into D.U are doomed to Fascist indoctrination- unless they spend even more money and go to America. Meanwhile, the Founders of Ashoka University stand exposed as evil Fascist bastards who swindled poor old Mehta and Subramanian and all their students.
The always idiotic, but slyly insinuating and insulting, Apoorvanand- who is a Delhi University Professor and thus shielded from Fascism- writes in Scroll.in.
The situation has escalated since news of the resignation of Professor Pratap Bhanu Mehta from his teaching job at the Ashoka University on Tuesday. On Thursday, Arvind Subramanian, the prominent economist and former Chief Economic Advisor to the government, also resigned from his professorship at the university. It is a heartwarming instance of solidarity with a colleague – and also a personal statement about the state of affairs at the university in Sonepat, Haryana.
What is that statement? It is that Ashoka is a pile of shite. It is against academic freedom. Maybe the whole thing is some complicated sort of Ponzi scheme or money laundering scheme.
The student body has gone public with its outrage and demanded explanation from the university.
The University says both resigned. They weren't pushed out. This is reasonable. You don't sack Professors mid-term. You wait till the holidays. Mehta is a flaky guy. He thinks his quitting Ashoka is equal to Sen quitting Nalanda. But Ashoka is private. All Mehta has done is show either
1) he is a Drama Queen
or
2) Ashoka is a swindle. He was fooled by a bunch of fraudsters. He should have realized that a small College in fucking rural Haryana could never become the equivalent of the New School or the Free University of Berlin.
The faculty has expressed its anguish and anger at the turn of events.
Because they too had been conned. Thanks to Mehta they look like fools. Fuck will they do next? Take a job in a Brothel which claims to be dedicated to Academic freedom?
All of them are addressing their vice chancellor and the trustees, which is what they can do.
Perhaps this has been translated from Hindi.
The vice chancellor is accountable to the academic community and must explain how the Mehta resignation took place.
That's easy. The guy is a big fat Drama Queen. Also nobody in their right mind wants to teach in rural fucking Haryana. Mehta and Subramanian can move to America where, under Biden, the anti-India lobby will find them lucrative sinecures.
It was bizarre to read about the chancellor feigning ignorance about these developments.
Instead of which they should have said 'Haryana is the fucking pits. Nobody wants to teach here. It's an hour's drive from Delhi- which, let me tell you, has fucking horrible air pollution compared to London or New York. Also, Delhi is in India. This place is a fucking shithole. Mehta and Subramanian are off to Greener pastures. They have burnished their anti-India credentials and will do well in Biden's America. 8 years ago Subramanian told the US House Committee- ' "by discriminating against Indian companies and exporters, (US initiatives) will exert natural pressure on India to open up".
Thankfully Modi doesn't give a crap about the Mehtas and Subramanians of the world. They can go tell the Americans to open up so they can give them a nice rim job.
Both of these officials have lost moral right to be in their position as they could not prevent the resignation, which was not voluntary at all.
If they were not voluntary, then both were sacked. Why won't they admit that? Why are they pretending to have voluntarily quit their posts? Why are they lying?
Or is it rather the case that this Hindi lecturer is lying? Perhaps, he has been translated incorrectly.
They failed the leadership role that requires them to defend their colleagues when they are facing attack from forces outside.
What forces outside? Were muscular Haryanvis entering the College and sexually assaulting Mehta or Subramanian? Perhaps. This is a Me Too moment for Indian academia. Apoorvanand has obviously been buggered senseless. Chancellor of Delhi University should protect him.
I remember my conversation with Ashok Vajpeyi who was heading the Mahatma Gandhi Antatrrashtriya Hindi Vishvavidylaya when I joined it.
Was it 'criminal conversation'? That is a tort resulting from adultery. This Ashok Vajpeyi dude sounds well dodgy.
You will commit mistakes while performing your job, he told me.
Was it a rim job or a blow job? Why won't Apoorvanand tell us? I suppose this is what is known as 'Chaayavaad' allusion and suggestiveness.
So long as you remain honest, I will defend you publically and not let you go. That is what a leader is.
Vajpeyi was the worst sort of poet-bureaucrat. The shithole he presided over in Wardha was even less salubrious than Sen's Nalanda. Apoorvanand, it seems, managed to escape- probably because he greased himself up.
By failing to stand up to the trustees, both the vice chancellor and the chancellor have fallen in the eyes of their colleagues and students.
I don't get what the VC and Chancellor were supposed to do. Mehta says he resigned after talking to the founders. It may be that they raped him and forced him to eat his own shit. If so, that was a clear violation of his Human Rights. The V.C and the Chancellor had a duty to inform the police if this is what happened and they knew about it. But if they did not know about it- though they may have noticed that Mehta was bleeding from the rectum and had shit smeared around his mouth- then what could they do? It may be that Mehta- and Subramanian for all we know- is frequently in that condition.
It is inexplicable for them to not even ask the trustees to be made part of a process leading to the departure of one of their most valued colleagues, who was till a few days ago being flaunted as a trophy.
No. It is not inexplicable at all that the VC and Chancellor did not demand to be made part of the process by which Mehta was brutally sodomized and forced to eat his own shit- if that is what really happened. On the other hand, we can't rule out that Mehta quit in a huff. Whatever passed between him and the trustees may have been entirely consensual.
The trustees have compromised with the foundational principle of the university: to defend the right of the faculty and students to think independently and express themselves freely. Are they sure that by getting rid of a daily nuisance like Pratap Bhanu Mehta, they have bought peace with this regime? Then they are hugely mistaken.
Here we see the genius of Hindi as a language. Apoorvanand is saying Mehta was a 'daily nuisance'. In other words, the guy was high maintenance. Trustees were having to give him a damn good seeing to on a daily basis. It wasn't enough. The fellow has now resigned. The trustees can no longer 'buy peace with this regime' by sodomizing or otherwise outraging Mehta's modesty once every 24 hours.
They are probably aware of the story of the famous Indian frog, Ganga Dutt, who made a pact with snake that promised to protect him. One offering a day from Ganga Dutt’s community is all the snake wanted. But gradually, the number of the frog’s compatriots dwindled. Poor Ganga Dutt was able to satisfy the protector snake only by offering himself.
This is a Panchatantra story known to all kids. However, Apoorvanand- probably because all he suffered when Ashok Vajpeyi refused to let go of him- gets this story wrong. Ganga Dutt, the Frog King, brings in the snake to kill his enemies. But, after they are all killed, the snake starts devouring Dutt's friends. Finally, only he is left. He escapes by promising to get more food for the snake. He does not offer himself.
Apoorvanand may have offered himself to Ashok Vajpeyi. We don't know and don't care. But we do note that he doesn't even know the Panchatantra. Thus we can conclude that he is utterly shit as a Professor of Hindi.
The regime will keep pushing the boundaries. It will need its daily pound of flesh. How will the trustees ensure that they are not asked to discipline another teacher who has authored a paper or book embarrassing this government or even putting forward a point of view or a fact that questions the ideological basis of the regime? Will they voluntarily ensure that uncomfortable voices are not heard at the campus?
Suppose the BJP told Ashoka to sack Mehta and Subramanian. Both can get other jobs. Anyone left on the faculty who can get another job will do so because that place now has a shit reputation. Those who are left will join the RSS or else end up on the scrapheap. That's it. That's the whole story. Snakes may eat frogs. People don't eat people- though they may want 'daily nuisances' to fuck off.
The trustees need to understand that this an ever-demanding regime.
Why couldn't Scroll.in edit this and clean up the English? They are being cruel to a poor Hindi-wallah who doesn't even know the Panchatantra.
It would not rest till it has robbed us of all our humanity. To live with the constant awareness of our limits and unfreedom diminishes us.
This cunt isn't aware that he doesn't even know the Panchatantra. Sadly, this hasn't diminished his ego at all.
To Mehta: you probably spoke reluctantly, but with others, you would not feel obliged to be apologetic about your demand.
What does this mean? I don't know. Was Mehta raped or not? Or did he demand sodomy? Was that the 'daily nuisance' that he committed? Or was just in the habit of taking a shit on the Trustee's desk? There is a lot of 'Chaayavaad' chiaroscuro going on here.
Less well-known figures have offered to the regime even before.
Offered what to the regime? Their arsehole? Not their arsehole, but their belly-button? Is that why they are less well-known?
A principle once compromised is impossible to recover in an institutional frame.
Nonsense! It can be re-established by changing the incentive structure.
It sets a precedent that can always be referred to for future actions.
No it doesn't. Apoorvanand is a cretin. So long as the threat point has been sufficiently enhanced, the situation has fundamentally changed. A fucker who tried to rely on the precedent gets fucked up. Is this cunt thinking of stare decisis? That's legal stuff.
The Ashoka University community will need to seriously introspect over its response to the punishment that those who supported a petition in 2015 condeming violence in Kashmir had to suffer.
So the place has never been a liberal paradise like JNU or Jamia Millia. But, in that case, why did Mehta accept the VC post? Why did Subramanian join it?
However, that lapse should not be allowed to stop a discussion on what is happening now. If Ashoka University cannot house a figure like Pratap Bhanu Mehta, then why does it exist?
It exists to give a good education to kids with money but poor marks. Nothing wrong with that. Kids should acquire work-skills and a bit of polish so as to earn money and pay taxes.
It is worth recollecting what Mahatma Gandhi did with his journal Harijan in 1940.
Whatever he did was completely useless. Bose going to meet Hitler, by contrast, threw a scare into the Raj.
Vinoba Bhave had commenced the Individual Satyagraha movement by delivering an anti-war speech in Paunar.
Yet, India's contribution to the war-effort went on mounting. Gandhi and Bhave were just play-acting.
He was travelling from village to village to make speeches against World War II. The colonial government issued instructions to the press asking them not to give publicity to the speeches and his movement. Harijan and its sister weeklies also received this notice.
Instead of continuing to bring out these titles without any news of the satyagraha, Gandhi decided to halt the publication of Harijan, Harijan-bandhu and Harijan Sevak.
Nobody cared. Gandhi himself complained that nobody would read his shite- even the weavers whom he was supposed to be helping.
He explained:
“I cannot function freely if I have to send to the Press Adviser at New Delhi every line I write about satyagraha. It is true that the notice is only advisory, and that therefore I am not bound to act up to it. But the consequence of disregard of advice is also stated in the notice. I have no desire to risk a prosecution against the Editors. The three weeklies have been conducted in the interest of truth and therefore of all parties concerned. But I cannot serve that interest if the editing has to be done under threat of prosecution. Liberty of the Press is a dear privilege, apart from the advisability or otherwise of civil disobedience.
So, Gandhi was utterly useless. India was contributing to the hilt to the war effort. Gandhi's own financiers were making lots of money. Later, with the Japs closing in, when Gandhi wagged his tail a little, he and his entire organization was thrown into jail. He went on a fast but Churchill was all like- why is Gandhi not dead yet? Are you sure he isn't having bacon sarnies smuggled in?
Later, once the tide of the war had turned, Gandhi+ was let out because he was utterly useless.
The Government have shown their intention clearly by the prosecution of Shri Vinoba Bhave. I have no complaint to make against the prosecution. It was an inevitable result of the Defence of India Rules. But the liberty of the Press stands on a different footing. I am unable to reconcile myself to the notice which although in the nature of advice, is in reality an order whose infringement will carry its own consequence.
I am sorry to have to disappoint the numerous readers of the three weeklies.”
His readers had been disappointed by him before and they would be disappointed again. He issued a call to 'Do or Die' but neither did anything nor died.
Gandhi informed the viceroy that he was stopping the weeklies till the government decided it was ready to face criticism. His article on November 10, 1940, bidding readers of the Harijan farewell must be read by not only the Ashoka trustees but all of us:
Why? We aren't as stupid and ignorant as Apoorvanand. We know Gandhi was a big fat failure.
“I shall miss my weekly talks with you…The value of these thoughts consisted in their being a faithful record of my deepest thoughts.
But those thoughts were shit.
Such expression is impossible in a cramped atmosphere. As I have no desire to offer civil disobedience,
i.e. I don't want to go to jail. I like sleeping naked with little girls.
I cannot write freely. As the author of satyagraha I cannot, consistently with my professions, suppress the vital part of myself for the sake of being able to write on permissible subjects such as constructive programme. It would be like dealing with the trunk without the head. The whole of constructive progarmme is to me an expression of non violence. I would be denying myself if I could not preach non-violence.”
What a cretin! The stupid cunt thought telling the Brits to let the Nazis fuck them over was a useful thing to do.
It might sound strange in our times – and would have surprised even Gandhi’s followers – that he decided to completely stop publication simply because he could not write or report on one activity: Vinoba Bhave’s actions.
This stupid cunt just told us that he could report on that one activity. However, he ran a risk of prosecution and being sent to prison.
But then, according to Gandhi, the most significant events of that moment were Bhave’s speeches.
Hilarious! There's a fucking World War going on and this cunt thinks Bhave- a low IQ guy- was saying something important.
For Gandhi, it was unacceptable to ignore that and write about things that were non-essential.
History's verdict on Bhave is that he was non-essential. Bhoodan was a scam.
“Full surrender of the non-essentials is a condition precedent to accession of internal strength to defend the essential by dying,” Gandhi concluded.
Everybody dies. Death does not defend shit. Gandhi had no internal strength. He did have some wealthy financiers. But they didn't bother protecting him- probably because they were trustees of Ashoka University.
The Ashoka trustees have to decide what was essential in the project they have embarked upon.
I think the answer is- getting students into good jobs.
The university was, according to them, to emerge as a world-class “pioneering liberal initiative” that encourages students “to think and to question”.
If they could think then they would question why they had to pay so much money to do something everybody else can do for free.
To enable the young minds to think and question, or in other words exercise their autonomy as an individual, you need a society that understands the full importance of these values.
Fuck off! The thing comes naturally to us. True, for Indians, thinking and questioning in English, rather than their mother tongue, might require a little education. But, speaking generally, Ashoka's students would have acquired that by the age of 15.
As Pratap Bhanu Mehta rightly reminded the trustees in his resignation letter to the vice chancellor, “A liberal university will need a liberal political and social context to flourish.”
But the cunt was stupid enough to think that 'political and social context' could be found in rural Haryana.
These are the most important words of Mehta’s letter. After this, he noted, “I hope the university will play a role in securing that environment.”
Mehta's role now involves splattering shit all over the University in the hope it goes under. Too bad its students get shafted. But principes can't be compromised coz Gandhi said so.
The art of critical thinking
We need to pause, hover over these words and think.
Apoorvanand can't think. That isn't the fault of Hindi as an academic discipline. It is the fault of all the shit that inside his cranium.
One of the many objectives of a true university, especially in these times, whether you call it liberal or not is immaterial, is to works towards creating and securing an environment where liberal political and social ideas can exist and breathe.
Nonsense! Either the place raises the lifetime earnings of students over and above the total financial and opportunity cost of attending it, or it is a scam. Ideas don't need to breathe and flourish- kids do. But kids have to grow up and get jobs. Education is about their getting better jobs than they could do otherwise. Professors must stop being such narcissistic cunts. They should earn their pay by helping kids get work-skills so as to do well in life.
How does it happen? Classrooms are definitely meant for practicing the art of critical thinking,
Not in the shite Apoorvanand teaches. If you live in India, your Hindi is probably quite good. Be critical of your teachers by telling them they are stupid cunts. Then quit their classes and sign up for something useful. Or just get a job, save money and try starting up something with a pal.
challenging all establishment thought.
If there is an establishment then there is a power structure. Challenging a power structure can't be done by 'thoughts'. You actually have to acquire countervailing power- stuff like money or muscle or legal nous. But that is easier said than done.
The important thing is to understand that anybody who teaches non-STEM subjects at University has shit inside their brain. Make fun of them. Tell them they smell bad. Kick them in the crotch if they try to get fresh with you. Otherwise give them a wide berth.
Ideas that dominate even the discipline that is being taught are probed there. But universities also host people like Mehta who help society understand itself better and making available to it the intellectual resources it can use to discover itself and equip itself better to make the world a more humane place.
Mehta has made no contribution to anything. He is a waste of space.
The most essential task before all educational endeavours must be to keep alive a sense of freedom, togetherness, diversity and justice.
No. Educational endeavors must actually educate people. Cunts like Apoorvanand should not be allowed to talk bollocks about freedom and diversity and everybody getting gay with each other. Why? Because they are stupid and ignorant.
To make them meaningful. That is what Pratap Bhanu Mehta has been doing through his teaching and public interventions. For doing that, he has turned into an obstacle not only in the smooth journey of Ashoka University but perhaps also in the path of growth of its patrons.
If you are flinging mud around, why stop there? Why not suggest that Mehta and Subramanian were cut out a lucrative land deal or a chance to pimp their students? Apoorvanand does not go far enough.
If Ashoka decides to sacrifice this essential for other pompous non-essentials, for what does it live?
Its students. If they do well, its existence is justified. If not, they should be shut down.
When talking about the fate of Ashoka, some of our colleagues have boasted that public universities are sanctuaries of free thought. They are lying to themselves. Public universities have made peace with this regime long back. Meek submission to all the diktats of the education ministry and the University Grants Commission, making all deliberative and consultative processes dysfunctional and turning teaching or learning into an exercise of merely transacting with the syllabus has taken life out of the public universities.
Actually, the Left died of natural causes long ago. The life Apoorvanand mourns died elsewhere and from other causes.
That we teachers cannot be removed or forced to leave has largely to do with the liberal approach of the founders of this Republic.
No. It has to do with the Civil Service ethos.
That is a small consolation, keeping in mind the fact that the regime has shown that it has another way of dealing with this impediment. Teachers like Hany Babu, Shoma Sen, Anand Teltumbde have been made an example in the Bhima Koregaon case. So, we do not have a right to mock Ashoka.
Wonderful! Apoorvanand is saying Mehta & Subramanian are Naxals!
We need to join the struggle of the students and faculty of Ashoka University to reclaim the promise of the institution.
Public Universities are highly subsidized. Students can gain by protesting for yet more public money. But Private Universities are charging Mummy and Daddy for your being there. You are literally shitting on yourself if you run amok.
For the principle is important: the principle of autonomy, freedom, ability to be your own self.
You only gain autonomy, freedom and the ability to be yourself after you quit your alma mater and cease to be in statu pupillari. Of course, if you never leave the womb of the campus- preferring to be an academic- they you never really grow up. Still, if you are as stupid and ignorant as Apoorvanand, where else can you go?
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