The decision of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, to restore recognition for the Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle (APSC) organised by a group of students, brings to an end an unseemly episode that was threatening to politicise the campus and distract from its academic focus. The restoration was on a technicality — the meeting of the study circle that supposedly violated the guidelines for student groups was held on April 14, four days before the institute publicised the guidelines on its website. But after hours of discussion with representatives of the study circle, the IIT-M management also agreed to look into issues raised by the APSC with regard to uniform application of the guidelines for independent student bodies. While some of the requests for modification of the guidelines would be implemented by the Office of the Dean (Students), the others would be taken up for consideration by the Student Affairs Council, the Board of Students and the Senate in due course “as per established procedure”. That the management did not stand on prestige after members of the APSC campaigned against the withdrawal of recognition as an issue of freedom of expression is a good sign, and the student representatives would do well to drop their demand for an unconditional apology. The withdrawal of recognition was a mistake. With that mistake corrected, matters must now be allowed to rest.

The episode, beginning with the hasty withdrawal of recognition based on an anonymous complaint to the Ministry of Human Resource Development, is a reminder of the vulnerability of freedom of expression in the face of institutional authority. Quite unmistakably, the controversy is closely related to recent attempts of the Sangh Parivar and Hindutva elements to appropriate the name of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. A study circle that sought to bring his legacy in line with that of the iconoclast Periyar (notwithstanding some irreconcilable ideological differences between the two) must have upset many in the ruling establishment. Indeed, the RSS supported the withdrawal of recognition on the ground that the study circle was indicative of the pervasiveness of the ‘red’ ideology of the communists on campuses, and that while Ambedkar might not have adhered to all the tenets of Hindutva, he was certainly anti-communist. As one of the charges against the study circle was that it was extremely critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the inescapable conclusion is that the withdrawal of recognition came at the prompting of the powers-that-be in New Delhi. In such a context, the study circle’s success in its battle for recognition is surely a victory for liberal forces, and a blow for freedom of expression.