Puber pen, webdesk: The standard of individual freedom in India’s institutional education is eroding. This is stated in a 2023 report prepared by international political scientists. The study comes a day after the Union Home Ministry imposed foreign funding restrictions on New Delhi’s Center for Policy Research.
Freedom of expression in India’s institutional education and cultural sectors has been eroded since the Narendra Modi government came to power, according to a report by the International Association of Political Scientists released on Thursday.
According to the report, made by researchers in Germany and Sweden, the autonomy of universities decreased significantly in 2009. And after 2014 it further decreased. According to this report of the researchers, the indicator criteria consists of five measures. These include freedom of research and teaching, freedom of academic exchange and dissemination, institutional autonomy of universities, freedom of academic and cultural expression, and campus integrity, meaning the absence of security breaches and surveillance on campus.
The report comes from 2197 researchers from around the world, including the V-Dem Institute in Gothenburg, Sweden, and the Institute of Political Science at Friedrich-Alexander University.
The V-Dem Institute, an independent academic research think tank, brought out such a report in 2021. It was mentioned there that 2016 has created an electoral dictatorship with the collapse of electoral democracy in India.
Another author, including Friedrich Alexander University researcher Lars Pelke, says that freedom in education has declined in parallel with the process of autocracy in India. In the context of autocracy, universities seem to be under constant pressure.
Indian social science researcher Nandini Sundar of Delhi University, Ashoka University researcher Gauhar Fazili presented a report in 2020. According to that report, the institutional education sector is stuck in increasing bottlenecks. Freedom of expression has to be limited.
Along with this, Nandini Sundar and Gauhar Fazili mentioned in their research, university students are being harassed in various ways besides curtailing their freedom of expression. Sanctions such as expulsion of dissident students and suspension of retirement benefits including denial of leave, suspension or cancellation of promotions, including withdrawal of scholarships are being imposed.