Professor Dettion: Ashoka’s co-founder defends the university’s silence on the arrest of the professor, questioned the campus activism

News India Live, Digital Desk: A few weeks after the arrest of Ashoka University Professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad on social media posts related to Operation Sindoor, co-founder and trustee Sanjeev Bachchandani defended an alumnus and defended the position of the university by sending strict emails. In this mail aired among alumni and teachers, Bakhchandani kept academic freedom separated from political expression and questioned the role of activism in a liberal art institute.

Of Times of India According to the report, this email shared on the internal mailing list was a response to criticism on the silence of the university during the free speech debate after the arrest of Mahmudabad. Bikhachandani wrote, “A liberal art university is not actively inherent, a political post on social media is not an academic scholarship, and founders have considered moving away.” “Why don’t you and other alumni do not come forward and offer it? Pramath, Ashish and I have discussed the option of going away seriously. Ashoka is a very high headache… Money, even in today, does not grow on trees, but it still runs the world,” he said to the fellow Trustee Pramath Raj Sinha and the founding president Ashish Dhawan.

Campus activity debate

Referring to the frequent clashes with student and faculty workers, he said, “Activity and Liberal Arts University are not connected to each other. Ashoka is a Liberal Arts and Science University. Whether or not it is to become a worker, it is a deliberate decision to be taken by people. In the past, I have questioned the activeness in Ashoka – every time I have att Students, teachers, workers, etc., and said that ‘if you are running a Liberal Arts University, then the activism runs with that area’, that ‘I am an arrogant owner’, that ‘dirty dirty capitalists do not understand how a university runs’ (they somehow forget that the same capitalists are paying them).’

He further clarified: “The political opinion expressed on Facebook or Twitter (X) or Instagram is not an academic scholar… You did not take the consent of Ashok before posting on social media, now you cannot present Ashok as a fact and cannot expect support.”

Bachchandani also raised a policy question demanding institutional boundaries: Should the full -time academics also adopt a political career? Mahmudabad has previously been associated with Samajwadi Party.

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