On Academic ‘Un’freedom

The issue of academic freedom is back in the conversation circuit in Sri Lanka, particularly on social media. And as usual in circumambience involving academic freedom, it has come up for all the wrong reasons. As one would expect, the new government has also been dragged into the controversy. The center of the storm is the action taken by the Acting Vice Chancellor of the University of Peradeniya to cancel a regular extra-curricular lecture at the university titled, “How to Fight Against the IMF Austerity Programme.” It was to be held on 2nd of January 2025 by the Political Science Students’ Association in collaboration with the International Youth and Students for Social Equality operating in the country via the Socialist Equality Party, the latter two being marginal political entities in the country.

Disrupting a lecture for whatever reason is a bad practice and precedent, particularly in a university, which by definition is expected to be a ‘universal’ space when it comes to ideas and thinking. The International Monetary Fund or the IMF has been the subject of innumerable global discussions ever since it was established in 1944 at Bretton Woods. The IMF’s rightwing approach to politics and callous disregard for human suffering in advancing its programmes have been the main reasons for inviting controversy globally. But in the present world, it has become ‘a necessary evil’ until such time it can be replaced by more humane organisations to carry out the same tasks.

Be that as it may, the lecture organised by the Political Science Students’ Association is an ordinary lecture of the kind often organised by student bodies across universities. Also, it very much sounds like the usual rhetoric against the IMF the world over. Given the political associations of the collaborators, it most likely would have also been a rhetorical affair on par with their general established slogans on the issue. That is to say, there was nothing unusual, unexpected or exceptional about the organization of the event, and no compelling concerns linked to national security or maintenance of law and order were evident that necessitated its cancellation.

When a university lecture is cancelled by a directive from above, it always leaves a bad taste in the mouth. This is particularly so when it is a blatant act of curbing academic freedom from within the establishment. Unfortunately, University of Peradeniya is not the first to embrace this practice in our country; neither would it be the last. I hope there would be consistent and insistent conversations within the university about what happened unless what Prof. Romila Thapar, the former Professor of History at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi says about such situations have come to dictate the nature of the academic environment at University of Peradeniya too: “It is not that we are bereft of people who can think autonomously and ask relevant questions. But frequently, where there should be voices, there is silence.” Closer to home, Prof Savitri Goonasekere, a former alumna of the University of Peradeniya and a former Vice Chancellor at University of Colombo calls this the “studied silence of the university community.” The outcomes of these conversations or lack thereof remains to be seen.

The lecture had the approval of the Head of the Department of Political Science. Notwithstanding, the senior treasurer of the Political Science Students’ Association, who is a faculty member, had informed the association that he had received a message from the Acting Vice Chancellor channeled through the Dean, Faculty of Arts and the Head of the Department of Political Science requesting that the topic of the lecture be revised and recirculated. Alternatively, if the suggested change was not made, the lecture would be cancelled. According to information circulating on social media, the objective of the university administrators was to ensure the lecture did not question government policies. This itself is a curious position. President Dissanayake’s stance on the IMF is well-known, if one takes a moment to listen to many videos of his speeches prior to the election. Merely because the government has begun to work with the IMF as a matter of necessity, it would be misplaced to assume the IMF has become the government’s darlings in the donor universe.

This opens several issues. It compromises the authority and independence university departments must have to organise lectures and academic events as they deem fit. If the Head of the Department of Political Science had given permission for the talk to proceed, the Acting Vice Chancellor or the Dean should not have had any issues with it. But now, those two officials have not only intervened, effectively challenging the university’s innate academic freedom, but by channeling the cancellation order through the Head of the Department of Political Science, who had already approved it, has undermined his position, command and professional dignity. It is sad that the latter did not stand his ground, but what is even more regrettable is that it is such compromising that often allows academic ‘un’freedom to take root in academia.

The pressure from the university’s senior management to cancel a talk organised by a group of undergraduates because it may anger the powers that be, speaks volumes about the way in which many of these senior dons in contemporary times think and seek to operate. It is not their responsibility to make governments happy. In fact, it is their moral obligation to ensure that the space for fresh and innovative thought of their university remains intact, open and vibrant rather than turning it into an intellectual wasteland. But this is precisely how academic freedom is curtailed in countries like ours and elsewhere too. Often, senior administrators go out of the way, to find ways to perceivably make a regime happy and protect their own positions in turn. This is partially due to the extreme politicisation and parochialisation of universities — from the presidential appointment of Vice Chancellors downwards, but also from the relative loss of leadership qualities in universities in general.

Part of the discourse on the present incident suggests that there were calls from the government’s Education Ministry to find out what the lecture was about and to bring pressure upon the university to ensure its cancellation. But the Education Minister and Prime Minister, Harini Amarasuriya has gone on record in issuing a statement saying, “Universities must remain places where diverse opinions, including critiques of government policies, can be freely expressed and discussed without fear of suppression. Nevertheless, we express concern about any action that undermines democratic expression and open dialogue within academic spaces.” It is commendable that she intervened as she did. Taking this incident as a point of departure, the Ministry of Education and its agencies such as the UGC need to urgently intervene as a matter of policy to ensure this callous disregard for academic freedom coming from within academia does not become the norm under the new dispensation too, and destroys any possibility of debate and discussion in universities, thereby stunting the already mediocre or perhaps even non-existent creative thought processes and analytical skills of our youth.

It seems what has happened is that senior university administrators were overly keen to find ways to make their allegiance to the regime known. This trend is not limited to Sri Lanka. In different universities across South Asia in recent times, it has become evident that academic bureaucrats try to work overtime to show their fidelity towards the government, even if the government has not made specific demands. Some university of Peradeniya insiders say that the lecture was canceled due to lapses in the approval process. If this was the case, there are numerous internal administrative processes that could have been used to rectify the matter rather than taking the drastic action of canceling a lecture.

Whatever the exact circumstances surrounding the case might be, this needless cancellation of a talk has certainly achieved two things: First, university of Peradeniya has established itself as the newest centre for academic ‘un’freedom in the country despite having been known historically as an institution from where critical and creative ideas once emerged. Second, it has also ensured that the two hitherto irrelevant political organisations — International Youth and Students for Social Equality and Socialist Equality Part — which were associated with the event have been elevated from relative oblivion to the status of heroes and protectors of academic freedom.

Let me conclude with the famous words of Edward Said I have referred to many times before: “Alas, political conformity rather than intellectual excellence was often made to serve as a criterion for promotion and appointment, with the general result that timidity, a studious lack of imagination, and careful conservatism came to rule intellectual practice.” I earnestly look forward to the day I won’t see the need to quote Said on academic freedom, but I am beginning to believe it would be a wait in vain.