Raghuram Rajan's bartered soul

In his recent intervention in the controversy generated by P.B. Mehta's resignation from Ashoka University, Raghuram Rajan quotes the 1967 Kalven Committee Report re. Chicago University. Kalven et al, very clearly stated that a University is not, and must never be, so cohesive as to be able to take collective action, or express a consensus view, on any great issue of the day. Instead, individuals must be allowed to go their own way.

Rajan, very stupidly, denies this basic presumption made by Kalven et al. Bizarrely, he says Institutions have souls- i.e. they are, or should be, cohesive and univocal. No doubt the soul of an Institution can be reborn as a cat or pig or Gandharva or other such celestial being. However, Rajan also believes that 'souls can be bartered away'. This is a surprising discovery for an economist to make. Perhaps he will help set up a globalized market for souls. But how much will his own fetch?

Not very much. Why? He has jumped on an academic bandwagon of a foolish type and that too for a self-interested reason as a pedagogue who wants tenure to be secure in the same way that Trade Unionists want featherbedding contracts for their members. 

Rajan says that the function of Ashoka University- a fledgling 'liberal arts' University- is to protect its Professors and that free speech in India has been grievously hurt because P.B Mehta resigned.

This is mad. The function of a University is to educate students. Protecting Professors may be part of this but then again it may not. P.B. Mehta does not need any protecting by the University because he is a contributing editor to a major newspaper. He says he 'resigned in the interests of the University'. Does anybody think the manner of his resignation helped Ashoka? Either the man is lying or he is mad. What he and his chums have done is hugely hurtful, not to the Trustees or Founders of Ashoka, but to the students foolish enough to have squandered their parent's money by enrolling there. They have become a global laughing stock. They failed to get into public Universities, where Professors can say what they like, and thus paid through the nose for a supposedly 'liberal arts' education in...rural Haryana! This is like signing up to learn cordon bleu cooking at McDonalds University or completing your PhD in medieval French literature at Disneyland. 

Mehta and Subramanian and Rajan think they are naming and shaming the trustees or the founders of Ashoka. But those people are successful businessmen. They have a lot of irons in the fire. Why should they dance to the tune of mere pedagogues? In any case, Vineet Gupta- whose Jamboree education is a successful Test prep Company with 39 centers across the globe- is setting up Plaksha in Chandigarh as a tech University. That is bound to be more successful because people like living in Chandigarh. Also stuff like A.I and robotics sounds cool. Mehta's shite does not sound cool. It is retarded. 

Rajan has taken one side in a quarrel between a guy who alleges he was pushed out and a University which says he wasn't pushed out at all. Why has Rajan done so? Does he have information which is not common knowledge? Or is he acting because of his 'class interest' in ensuring that no fellow pedagogue is ever 'pushed out' for whatever reason?

Rajan says Universities should not 'take sides' in political question. Yet, he is saying Mehta's resignation is politically significant. The University must take the anti-Government side, because that is what Mehta himself has done. Mehta must be lured back by whatever means for a political reason.

Rajan, with typical fatuity, writes

The problem here is that Mehta has resigned. He has ceased to be part of Ashoka's 'community of scholars'. He is not entitled to any further 'protection'- though Rajan does not say who Mehta needs to be protected against or why the Indian Express-- which is much more powerful than Ashoka- can not or does not continue to provide that protection, as well as a much bigger platform, to Mehta right now. 

Mehta says he left voluntarily in the best interests of the University. It seems the Trustees said somethings to him which he didn't like- but the Trustees too are entitled to free speech. 

A good university is one where the students are very clever and talented. There is no reason to believe Ashoka- which charges high fees and admits kids who couldn't get into reputable public Colleges- meets this criteria. Rajan is pretending the place is Yale or Harvard. For God's sake, why? He is making himself look utterly deracinated and out of touch with Indian reality. 

Consider the position of the University of Chicago in 1967- at a time when the anti-War movement was reaching a height- with Ashoka University in 2021. Chicago had some of the smartest people on the planet. There are a hundred Nobel laureates associated with it.  Moreover, the Vietnam War was a complete and utter shit-show. By contrast, Ashoka is a fledgling institution with no academic reputation, national or international, to speak of. India faces nothing similar to the anti-War protests of the late Sixties in America. Rajan has shown great stupidity in mentioning the Kalven report.

Siting a College in some rural location is a bad idea. Nalanda International is a classic example of a Government funded White Elephant doomed to fail because of its location. Ashoka might turn into a Law & Accountancy College where relatively stupid kids are drilled into passing Professional Exams. This can pay for itself. Plaksha in Chandigarh may succeed as a technical College because Chandigarh is very livable. But 'free speech' of Mehta's anti-national type is a drug on the market. You can get it for very little money in the way of fees at a Public University. Sadly, beating or gang rape may also feature. But, in the old days, that was what going to Collidge was all about. You used your hockey sticks to beat your rivals. But even better than Collidge was a spell in Jail- the true University of free speech and related anti-social activity. 

Rajan, like the other pedagogues who stand with Mehta, wants to protect his own narrow class from the threat of the sack. This is understandable. But he has bartered his soul- his capacity for parrhesia- truthful speech- for the mess of pottage that is tenure. Shame on him. India boosted his reputation and market value in the States. He shits on us by way of thanks.