Unfreedom has become India's natural state

There is no outrage in the academic world that anthropologist Filippo Osella was deported or at other instances of curbing of academic freedom

It should not surprise us that Filippo Osella, a renowned anthropologist and sociologist from the United Kingdom, was deported from a Kerala airport. He was there to participate in a conference on "emerging themes connected to the livelihood and lifeworld of Kerala's coastal communities". It was organised by the Cochin University of Science and Technology, the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, the University of Kerala, and the University of Sussex. Osella is a renowned scholar, well respected among his peers. He is known for his work on the fishing communities and their livelihood.

Osella arrived in India on a valid visa. But he was promptly put back on a return flight on the orders of the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO). The FRRO refused to explain the reasons behind this extraordinary decision. It said that the step was taken on the orders of the higher authorities. Even five days after the deportation, we do not know the cause.

It is futile to look for any valid and rational reason for his deportation. After all, we are in a country where a woman can be jailed for wishing peace to all countries since it could mean good wishes for Pakistan too.

As the arrest of the woman has hardly created a ripple in the social and political life of India, apart from sighs from some quarters, so has the deportation of Ossela failed to move Indian academia in general. It is very instructive to read the reaction from the scholar and author J Devika. She wondered why he took this action against Ossela as his scholarly work can hardly be called controversial.

We have now set our bar so low that we will not mind if scholars like Sheldon Pollock are debarred from entering India as his views on Sanskrit and Indian culture are not taken kindly by the nationalist party and its cohorts. That this punitive action against a non-controversial and proper academic like Ossela shocks us says a lot about our understanding of the state we are in. We are trying to find a rationale for the actions of this regime. For example, scholars will not think it necessary even to take note of the sudden cancellation of the talk of Prashant Bhushan, even after obtaining all clearances, at the Law Faculty of the University of Delhi. Is he not a controversial figure?

Osella's areas of scholarly work are Kerala, South India, South Asia, Gulf countries: social reproduction and stratification, popular religion (Hinduism and Islam) and reform movements, migration, masculinity, consumption, relations between economic and religious practice, entrepreneurship and trade networks.

Osella has a long association with Kerala. He did his doctoral research in rural Kerala and has published two books – one on issues of stratification, identity and social mobility among an ex-untouchable community, 'Social Mobility in Kerala', and another on masculinities called 'Men and Masculinity in South India'.

His recent research examines contemporary transformations of south Indian Muslims with fieldwork in Kozhikode and a number of Gulf countries. But he has also worked on Pakistan. His research and academic interests take him to Pakistan whenever he comes to India for his research. Was this the reason that made the babus suspicious and put him on watch?

This is a question Ossela himself has asked. He has wondered what could have made him suspicious in the eyes of the Indian authorities. And it shows how blissfully unaware are the scholars of the larger context in which they function. They still look for rationality and some stability since the former is associated with the latter in a system that has made every aspect of life in this country uncertain and vulnerable to the violence of different kinds.

We take it as accepted that there could be a reason for the non-screening of 'Tamas', the Govind Nihalani film based on the novel by Bhisham Sahni or denial of permission for screening of Anand Patwardhan's 'Ram Ke Naam'. There is no outrage in the academic world when the academic body at the University of Delhi discusses the undesirability of books by Nandini Sunder. The wider academic world hardly notices the suspension of Gilbert Sebastian, an assistant professor at the Central University of Kerala, as one of his classroom lectures was found to be controversial.

Why is it that the academic world has not reacted to the portrayal of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) as a 'den of terrorists' in an officially celebrated movie on Kashmir? The way it has demonised the institution and one of its teachers should have disturbed us. It has not.

The academics interested in India or who work on India should not think that they will be spared the treatment which publically engaged academics suffer. They should not think that academic collaborations will go on smoothly, with such deportations being exceptions when universities and research bodies avoid politically incorrect topics.

Can you discuss Kashmir in Indian universities? Can you even teach Three Hundred Ramayanas in an Indian university? If not, it would be difficult, at some point, to talk about the relationship between the sea and the fishing community too.

But our universities, some of them trying to be world-class, are lining up before the government to get the tag of being an 'eminent institution'. One of the faculty members of such a university told me that she could not talk about the persecution of Gautam Navlakha, the human rights activist, in her class, so she has to find other ways to discuss it.

I am not aware if the departments of Anthropology or Sociology in India even thought it necessary to inform their students about the deportation of Filippo Osella. It would be an unnecessary distraction.

We need to appreciate that academic freedom, even of those working on esoteric areas, cannot survive when a large population has lost freedom or when the country has accepted unfreedom as its natural state.

(The writer teaches at Delhi University)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.

Check out DH's latest videos: