As a responsible Opposition, it is our duty to protect the country’s independent institutions. So whether it is our Parliament, judiciary, Election Commission, RBI, central investigative agencies, or others, it is time we defeated all attempts to undermine them and destroy their autonomy. It is these vital institutions that protect the citizen against state power, that are empowered by the Constitution to stand as bulwarks against a rampaging executive. Above all, we need to protect our educational institutions, which have always been the first to come under attack — to indoctrinate, manipulate, control. The closing of the minds of the young has grave implications for our country’s future.

Institutes of higher learning include those built by the state and those built by individuals of extraordinary vision. Individuals with a Big Idea. Homi J Bhabha imagined the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. J N Tata conceived the Indian Institute of Science. Madan Mohan Malaviya built Banaras Hindu University. Syed Ahmad Khan created Aligarh Muslim University. Bengal, too, contributed gems to this intellectual nation-building: Rabindranath Tagore’s Visva-Bharati University (1921) and P C Mahalanobis’s Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) (1931). If India ever declared “educational navratnas”, these institutions would be among the first to qualify.

Over the past decade, we have witnessed a tightening of the Union government’s control over autonomous institutions. Take the Indian Institutes of Management (IIM). The Indian Institutes of Management Act, 2017 gave them autonomy, with the power to choose their own directors and frame internal policies. However, the Indian Institutes of Management (Amendment) Act, 2023 reversed that sovereignty. Appointments of directors and key decisions must now be approved by the Ministry of Education and the President. The message was clear: Autonomy is a privilege, not a right. And it can be taken back.

Or consider Visva-Bharati. Tagore built it on the ideals of openness, interdisciplinary learning, and a deep humanism. Today, that fragile ecosystem is being forced into the rigid mould of the National Education Policy, 2020. Instead of academic help, faculty are being sent for administrative training under the Rashtriya Karmayogi programme. The mantra is conform, not flourish.

The Common University Entrance Test is an example of the broader attempt to impose conformism and homogeneity. In essence, the Union government took control of who enters a university, and how.

The Union government recently released the Draft Indian Statistical Institute Bill, 2025 for public consultation. It proposes to transform ISI from a registered society into a statutory body, largely controlled by the Union government. The democratically structured 33-member council will be replaced by an 11-member board of governors, mostly nominated by the Union government. Clause 17 (5) says, “The Board shall, in the exercise of its power and discharge of its functions under this Act, be accountable to the Central Government.”

ISI is a product of the Bengal Renaissance, an era of intellectual courage, scientific rigour, and humanist values. Mahalanobis, its founder, was the architect of modern India’s statistical system. ISI’s strength has always been its independence: An environment where statisticians, economists, computer scientists, and mathematical thinkers could work free of bureaucratic interference. That independence is now under serious threat.

As the Union government attempts to bring more institutions under its direct command, one must ask: Is this really an attempt to strengthen education, or stifle it? An attempt to support institutions, or subordinate them? India will not progress by steamrolling its institutions into identical bureaucratic units, but only when its institutions are free to think, question, innovate. Control does not create quality. Freedom does.

“What is really needed to make democracy function is not knowledge of facts, but right education.” — Mahatma Gandhi, 1936.

P.S. Education is on the Concurrent List. If the Union government decides everything from admissions to governance, states are reduced from partners in nation-building to suppliers of campus space.

[This article was also published in The Indian Express | Friday, December 5, 2025]