Governors vs Governments: Campuses caught in crossfire

Universities in the states ruled by the parties other than the BJP and its allies have turned into battlegrounds

“I was only suggesting an honourable way out for them,” Arif Mohammad Khan, the Governor of Kerala, said after he put the vice-chancellors of nine universities in the state on a less-than-24-hour notice and asked them to resign. When the VCs did not resign by 11:30 a.m. on October 24, he went on to issue another set of notices, asking them to explain by 5 p.m. on November 3 why their appointment should not be declared illegal and void ab initio. He later also demanded resignation of the VCs of two more universities. The Left Democratic Front government accused the governor of waging a war against the state universities at the behest of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Not only Kerala, but the universities in several other states ruled by the political parties other than the BJP and its allies have also turned into battlegrounds in the raging wars between the governors and the governments.

In Punjab, after Governor Banwari Lal Purohit objected to appointment of the VCs of the two universities, the Aam Aadmi Party’s government in the state accused him of interfering at the behest of the BJP. Purohit countered, saying that the powers to take decisions regarding appointments of the VCs were vested in the Raj Bhavan as the governor, like in other states, was also the chancellors of the state universities.

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The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government in Tamil Nadu took objection to Governor R N Ravi holding review meetings with the VCs of the state universities without keeping it in the loop. Ravi was also accused of sitting on the Siddha University Bill that Chief Minister M K Stalin’s government got passed by the state assembly.

“The Centre uses governors to settle scores with the states ruled by the opposition parties,” writer, parliamentarian and Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi general secretary, D Ravikumar, says. “The only way to stop the governors from their overreach in the varsities is to stop them from being chancellors too."

Dr Srutinath Praharaj, former general secretary of West Bengal College and University Teachers' Association (WBCUTA), says that the governors should not be the chancellors of the state universities. “The chancellor or visitor of a university should always be an eminent academician, never a politician,” he says, adding: “Appointment of Vice chancellor should be made strictly according to merit through search committee as per the guidelines specified by the UGC earlier.”

The DMK government in Tamil Nadu and the Trinamool Congress’s government in West Bengal did get Bills passed by the state assemblies to curtail powers of the governors in appointment of the university VCs. But Ravi and the then West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar (now Vice President) did not give ascents to the Bills. Neither did Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari in Maharashtra after Uddhav Thackeray’s government got a similar legislation passed by the state assembly. The original Maharashtra Public Universities Act, 2016 stipulated that the Governor would appoint a Search Committee, which would recommend five names from which he would select one as the VC of a particular varsity. It was amended to provide for the government appointing a search committee, which in turn would forward two names to the Governor. Besides, the Maha Vikas Aghadi government also proposed that the state’s Higher and Technical Education Minister would also hold the newly-created office of the Pro-Chancellor of the universities and would be empowered to call for any information relating to the academic and administrative affairs of the universities. The Bill, however, never turned into a law and Thackeray’s successor Eknath Shinde’s government withdrew the Bill.

“Where is the Governor now? When the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government was in power, he regularly used to write letters and make statements. But, over the last three months, he had said nothing,” said NCP national spokesperson Clyde Crasto. “The education system must be kept out of politics. The Governors must go by the Constitution,” he said, adding that the “BJP-appointed Governors” were creating problems and interfering in everything. “Thats what was happening in Maharashtra,” he said.

It is inconceivable that the governor, who does not have discretionary powers, can exercise discretionary powers as chancellor of state universities, stated the Kerala State University Law Reforms Commission. It recently recommended to the state government led by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan that the powers of the governor as chancellor should be trimmed. “Asking nine vice-chancellors to step down within less than 24 hours on the basis of a Supreme Court order with regard to selection process of one vice-chancellor was denial of natural justice,” says N K Jayakumar, the commission’s chairman and former VC of the National University of Advanced Legal Studies. He was referring to the communiqué the Governor of Kerala had sent to the VCs of the nine universities, asking them to resign. Khan had in fact initiated the process after the Supreme Court on October 21 had set aside the appointment of M S Rajashree as the VC of the APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University in Kerala, observing that the selection process was not in sync with the norms set by the University Grants Commission.

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Khan, who had several run-ins with the LDF government, had in December 2021 alleged that the higher education sector of Kerala had gone to the dogs. He and then the High Court had stayed the selection of Vijayan’s private secretary K K Ragesh’s wife in Kannur University.

He took exception to the comments made by Vijayan’s finance minister K N Balagopal at an event at the Karyavattom campus of the Kerala University on October 19. Balagopal had said that some people accustomed to practices in places like Uttar Pradesh might not be able to understand the democratic way in which universities function in Kerala. It appeared to be a tacit jibe at Khan, who hailed from Uttar Pradesh.

The governor in a letter to the chief minister on October 25 demanded action against the finance minister for allegedly violating the oath of office and undermining the unity and integrity of India. He conveyed to the CM that Balagopal no longer enjoyed the pleasure of the governor.

Valson Thampu, the former principal of the St Stephen's College in Delhi, says that the initial moves of the governor had been widely seen with much hope as it had then looked like efforts to make the universities free from political interventions. But what had then followed looked like advancing the BJP-RSS agenda. “Marching orders to vice-chancellors and withdrawal of pleasure to a minister are attempts to make law a weapon to subvert natural justice,” adds Thampu.

“The CPM alleges that BJP-RSS is trying to implement Hindutva agenda, But isn’t the ruling party also trying to implement Marxist ideologies by appointing persons of their choice as the VCs?” asks R S Sasikumar, chairman of the Save University Campaign Committee in Kerala.

Ishita Mukhopadhyay, a professor of Calcutta University, says the appointment of the VCs is one of the several areas where the autonomy of the universities and other higher education centres were undermined by political interference. “Since the governments at the Centre and the State are all democratically elected, it is expected that both should respect the autonomy of the universities,” Mukhopadhyay, the convenor of the Right to Education Forum in West Bengal, adds: “If they don't, universities and higher education suffer”.