IndiaTomorrow.net,
Chandigarh, March 26: “The right of dissent and agitation are ingrained in the fundamental rights under our Constitution, which sets out a plural framework and refuses any scope to define the country in narrow sectarian, ideological or religious terms,” said Vice President of India Mohammad Hamid Ansari.
He was delivering the 66th Convocational Address at the Panjab University in Chandigarh on Saturday.
“The ‘national interest’ in this scheme is constitutional rule. This is what Dr. Ambedkar had in mind when he said that, ‘It is only constitutional morality that must guide the government, not any whimsical invocation of narrow-minded, parochial figureheads and mythical characters,'” said the Vice President.
“Intellectual dissent has the power to clarify differences and elucidate competing assumptions. It enables each of us to recognize the strengths and weaknesses in our thinking. Strong intellectual work can only be done in an atmosphere where scholars feel free to take risks, challenge conventions, and change their minds. A University must foster an environment that prizes intellectual freedom. Except in cases of illegal conduct or violence, a University should never seek to silence or influence faculty members or students to adopt or renounce any particular position. Indeed, universities should take all legal action necessary to defend their academic integrity and freedom.”
“Academic freedom is the foundation of the University’s mission to discover, improve, and disseminate knowledge. This is to be done by examining different ideas in an environment that encourages free and scrupulous debate. The ideas, no matter how uncomfortable or disturbing to the accepted status quo, can and must be challenged, modified and even discarded- on their merit, but may never be muted or suppressed.”
The Vice President said universities should speak out fearlessly.
“The University, in discharge of its duties, has the responsibility of speaking out without the fear of intimidation; and to give offense, even at the cost of inviting protests. Not doing so would be to deviate from the path of rational enquiry and undermine our curiosity about the world by embracing ill-defined orthodoxies, which would impoverish our pursuit of knowledge,” said Hamid Ansari.
“Academic freedom requires a robust tolerance for disagreement and criticism, a willingness to have one’s assumptions questioned, and openness to new ideas that may prove offensive. This tolerance always has the potential to conflict with other virtues and causes, so it needs to be defended repeatedly and vigilantly.”
Without naming any specific incident at Jawaharlal Nehru University or Ramjas College of Delhi University, the Vice President said: “We need to revisit these commitments today because we are again in a climate that questions the value and scope of academic freedom. Recent events in our own country have shown that there is much confusion about what a university should or should not be. The freedom of our universities has been challenged by narrow considerations of what is perceived to be ‘public good.'”
“In a period of rampant distrust of matters intellectual there is an imperative need to defend the universities as free spaces, as independent, critical repositories of knowledge, and as sources of renewal of liberal values that provide avenues of social mobility and equality to people. We need to remind ourselves of the democratic aspirations of pragmatic liberal education while recalling that ‘our finest universities help fulfill the dreams of our best selves as a people.'”
“An important aim of higher education is to learn to ask questions and to develop the capacity for reasoned arguments. This is what Gurudev Rabindra Nath Tagore alluded to when he sang; ‘Where the mind is without fear….Where knowledge is free…..Where words come out from the depth of truth…'”
