Tussle over autonomy takes its toll on Nalanda’s dream
Six years after its foundation, the university is far from achieving its potential and is now staring at a leadership vacuum, write Satyavrat Mishra & Manavi Kapur
Going by the calm around the Nalanda University campus in Rajgir, Bihar, it is tough to believe that the institution is, for the moment, in the eye of a storm. Life seems to be going on as usual inside the campus which is built on land that once belonged to the Bihar government. Students are buried deep in their studies and the university administration has explained that since it is examination week, everyone has been told to concentrate on their preparations. An informal “gag order” seems to be in effect.
After six years from the day of its foundation, Nalanda University is still, in many senses, a dream, an ideal yet to be realised. While there is a makeshift campus in operation, it hasn’t reached the potential it had promised. A total of 455 acres were allotted for the campus by the Bihar government in 2011, yet it took almost five years for the university to finalise the tender for the first phase of construction of the campus.
According to the terms of the tender, the contractor would also have to set up facilities for the production of compressed, stabilised earth blocks from the dug-up soil to build foundations and the water bodies. Construction was delayed because requisite permissions took longer than usual. The foundation stone was laid by President Pranab Mukherjee only in October.
According to detractors of the university’s former board of governors, reasons such as a complicated tendering process have delayed construction. And a tussle between the board of governors and officials of the Union external affairs ministry has slowed things down further.
In March, the ministry “vitiated” the earlier tender as the university didn’t obtain “approvals” before finalising the tender. “In the new tender, the university had to fight tooth and nail on various provisions of the tender,” says a government official who knows about the inner workings of the university.
Things took a turn for the worse when Nalanda’s first vice-chancellor Gopa Sabharwal’s tenure extension came under the central government’s scanner. Nalanda is a unique university that is governed by the ministry of external affairs rather than the ministry of human resource development.
According to the university statutes, a vicechancellor’s term could only be extended once and that extension was not to extend a period of one year. Sabharwal’s extension ended on November 24, but the Nalanda Mentors Group (NMG) — a de-facto governing council that consisted of economist Amartya Sen, Meghnad Desai, Rajya Sabha MP Sugata Bose, among others — wanted Sabharwal’s tenure to continue till a new vice-chancellor was appointed, to avoid a “vacuum of leadership”. A tug of war over appointment Sabharwal has been the bone of contention between the government and the NMG since her appointment in 2011. At the time of her appointment, questions were raised over whether, under the University Grants Commissions norms, she qualified to be a vicechancellor of any university as well as over the salary she drew even before classes at the university began.
An office of the university was set up in New Delhi, which Sabharwal operated out of, and which was seen as bizarre and contrary to the entire idea of reviving the university in Bihar. An erstwhile professor of sociology at the Lady Shri Ram College for Women in Delhi, she drew a salary of over ~5 lakh per month, according to reports, which was more than twice of what the Delhi University vicechancellor earned.
But despite the controversies then and now, Sabharwal enjoyed the full support of the NMG as well as the faculty. While offering to extend her tenure till a new vice-chancellor was appointed, the university sent out a statement expressing its faith in her capabilities.
George Yeo, Singapore’s former foreign minister and Nalanda’s former chancellor who recently resigned, also commends Sabharwal’s work at the university. “Despite difficult circumstances, the university has made remarkable progress through the tireless effort of Sabharwal and her colleagues,” he wrote in his resignation letter.
Yeo declined to comment in response to an emailed questionnaire. Phone calls and text messages to Sabharwal went unanswered.
The real question over autonomy arose when the central government overruled the extension of Sabharwal’s term and consequently dissolved the NMG. The group was also responsible for selecting and appointing the next vicechancellor, which is now expected to see further delays. The group itself outlasted its tenure by three years, which was due to an understanding with the government.
The NMG was to last for one year, and was given an extension of another two years till November 2013 due to a delay in funds from member countries. An amendment was sought in the Nalanda University Bill, which was delayed indefinitely due to the general elections in 2014.
Till the external affairs ministry stepped in to dissolve this group and constitute a new one, this informal understanding was in play.
Academicians in Bihar blame both sides for this fiasco. “The board was adamant about Sabharwal, while the central government wanted to prove its supremacy by ousting her. None of them
George Yeo (below), Singapore’s former foreign minister and Nalanda’s former chancellor who recently resigned, believed the university achieved rapid progress under Gopa Sabharwal, its first vice-chancellor whose term ended on November 24