RIGHT
ANGLE
Paying
for Leftist Junk
Are the
unproductive research institutes above accountability?
By
Swapan Dasgupta
Every
free society has its own variant of what is celebrated in the British
media as the "silly season". It's the time of year when trivialities
and tear-jerkers masquerade as news for want of anything better. It's
the time of year when bored journalists scour the landscape for penurious
freedom fighters and dilapidated birthplaces of national heroes. One such
tale doing the rounds last week centred on the former south Calcutta home
of the celebrated historian Sir Jadunath Sarkar. It also coincided with
a lachrymose concern for the severe financial crisis facing the Centre
for Studies in Social Sciences (CSSS), an institute based in Sir Jadunath's
house from 1973 till earlier this year. "Our budgetary allocation
is not even enough to see us through beyond October," the CSSS director
told The Hindustan Times. In short, there was no alternative to leasing
or selling the building to a property developer.
A sad story,
so sad that if one newspaper is to be believed, the CSSS' threatened closure
"will be an irreparable blow to Calcutta's intellectual reputation".
So it would seem till you realise that in all its 27 years, there was
precious little of Sir Jadunath that survived in Lake Terrace. The institute
wasn't named after him, his pioneering work in Mughal and Maratha history
wasn't furthered there and his reputation as a historian was constantly
ridiculed. In fact, you would really have to look extremely hard to even
locate a photograph of Sir Jadunath in his old home. For the CSSS, Jadunath
Bhavan was just a convenient piece of real estate.
The issue,
it is quite apparent, isn't one of rescuing a piece of our intellectual
heritage from saffron philistinism. The larger question concerns the academic
direction of the 27 research institutes funded by the Indian Council of
Social Science Research (ICSSR). Set up by the then education minister
S. Nurul Hasan during the ultra-socialist phase of Indira Gandhi's government,
following the recommendations of the Sukhamoy Chakraborty Committee, these
institutes had less to do with research than providing convivial resting
houses for the leftist intelligentsia.
Divorced
from the humdrum teaching activity of the universities, they operated
as pampered think tanks for the regime. Bereft of all accountability-now
a point of friction with the politically "hostile" ICSSR-the
faculty concentrated on abstruse research, like the intra-Marxist mode
of production debate. The atmosphere was intellectually stifling-sociologist
Ram Guha has penned a revealing account of the Marxist correctness that
marked debate in the CSSS-and the gamut of worthwhile research generated
by these institutes wouldn't fill even a modest-sized bookshelf.
The director
of one institute, for example, spent his long tenure attending seminars,
sitting on appointment committees and politicking. His academic output
was book reviews for newspapers. Upon retirement, Hasan helped him establish
yet another institute. This time funded by the Ministry of Culture and
devoted ostensibly to the study of Central Asia. In 1998, when a less
indulgent government stepped in and demanded accountability, there were
predictable charges of intolerance.
Society
has been too indulgent. How much longer must taxpayers be expected to
pay for academia's unending bacchanalia? Surely there's a case for the
CSSS and similar institutes being referred to the Ministry of Disinvestment.
That's a more humane option than immediate closure.
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