The refusal by the Kerala University syndicate to honor President Ram Nath Kovind with an honorary D Litt during the latter's visit to the State last month has shocked educationists, cultural icons and literary figures.
It is said that when the Maharaja of Travancore decided to set up an independent Travancore University in 1937, C P Ramaswami Aiyar, the then Diwan of the princely State wrote to Albert Einstein asking him to join the new University as a professor on a monthly pay of Rs 6,000/-. But the Nobel laureate preferred to join Princeton for reasons known to him only. That was the era of visionaries like Aiyar who always dreamt and thought big.
If the recent letter by V P Mahadevan Pillai, the present Vice Chancellor of Kerala University, to Chancellor Arif Mohammed Khan (the Governor) reaches Aiyar, the latter would have turned in his grave, said R Sanjayan, director, Bharathiya Vichara Kendra, Kerala’s leading think tank on socio-political-cultural issues.
Governor Arif Mohammed Khan while interacting with the media the other day said that the Vice Chancellor’s handwritten note shocked him because of the kind of language and the spelling mistakes. .
Sources close to the Governor Arif Mohammed Khan, said that he was aghast to learn that the University has not held its annual convocations for decades. As a sign of atonement, the Governor decided to hold the convocation in a grand style and got in touch with President of India and requested him to be the chief guest of the function. The President obliged the Governor who summoned the vice chancellor to Raj Bhavan and asked him to make arrangements for the convocation and get the syndicate pass a mandatory resolution to honor the President with the D Litt. But the syndicate members, all of them nominees of the CPI(M)-led Government decided not to honor the President.
The vice-chancellor, a CPI(M) appointee, too toed the party line and the plans of the Governor came a cropper. “The issue is not honoring the President of India. But the University of Kerala lost a chance to honor itself by the refusal,” said Sanjayan.
The universities in the State, Kerala, MG, CUSAT, Kannur, Sree Sankara Sanskrit University, Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences (KUFOS), Calicut and Kannur have been politicized and communalized beyond imagination, according to Prof C I Issac, member , Indian Council of Historical Research. “It is an unconscionable mistake taken by hardcore politicians blinded by political power. I can say that they were challenging the Constitution of India by refusing to honor the First Citizen of the Country,” said Prof Issac.
Prof Issac, a widely respected educationist did not mince words when he came down heavily on politicians of all hue and cry. “The appointments of vice chancellors in the universities in Kerala are based on caste, communal and political lines. The Kerala University vice-chancellor is appointed from Hindus while Mahatma Gandhi University post is meant for Christians. Calicut and Kannur Universities are for Muslims representing SDPI and PFI. This is a sad state of affairs,” said Issac.
Both Sanjayan and Issac pointed out that it was the State Committee of the CPI(M) that decides who becomes the heads of university and cultural organisations. “I was reading a series of articles in local media about the election process of KUFOS that said the person approved by the State Committee would be appointed as the Vice Chancellor. Have you heard of such a thing anywhere in the country?” asked Sanjayan.
Pillai, the vice chancellor, opted the easier way out by issuing a statement in which he said that he preferred to be ‘careful with the spelling and grammar of his life’.