Amartya Sen. Wikimedia Commons/LSE. Some rights reserved.When governments do battle with universities, they can “go through them like a sword through butter”, said Indian Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, as he resigned as chancellor of Nalanda University earlier this year.
The outspoken economist stepped down out of frustration as the government dithered over approving his reappointment, despite unanimous endorsement from the board. He went on to warn: “academic freedom is based on the government understanding the limits of its formal power as opposed to its actual power and what they are expected to do.”
His story is one of many in the latest issue of Index on Censorship magazine, which is themed around academic freedom and explores all such power struggles. The worldwide report looks at numerous cases in academia where authority is being abused and autonomy undervalued. Threats to free speech on campus are coming from all angles – political, economic, religious and societal, from the restrictive nature of corporate-sponsored research, to the fear of offence and those increasingly common buzzwords: trigger warnings, no-platforming, safe spaces.
