IN A RECENT RESPONSE TO AN EX STUDENT, later published by The Print, Sanjeev Bikhchandani, one of the co-founders of Ashoka University, expounds on “The Idea of a Liberal University”. Whether one agrees with Bikhchandani or not, his response to the letter is an interesting contribution to the debate on academic freedom. There is no doubt that it should go as an essential reading to understand the perspective of a liberal university in today’s India.
Bikhchandani does not call for deeper academic analysis and an engagement with expert knowledge on what a university should be like. Rather, he attempts to explain how a university functions and the boundaries of the personal and professional in an academic life. He also highlights the difficulties of running a university and the balancing act that it has to perform on a daily basis in its own life.
Long ago, J.H. Newman, spoke on “The Idea of a University” (1852). He argued that a university is a place for “teaching universal knowledge”, its object is “intellectual, not moral” and it contributes to “diffusion and extension of knowledge” and not its “advancement”. Nevertheless, the “assistance” of the church is necessary for the “integrity” of a university.
