New Delhi: In an attempt to impose censorship rules, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur barred its teachers from making any comment or criticism that may jeopardise “the relation” between the institute and the state and Central governments.
A report in The Telegraph said that the institute’s registrar B.N. Singh on Friday issued a notice that directed teachers not to make any “adverse criticism” of the institute’s current policy and action. It further asked them not to write or say anything that can cause “embarrassment in the relation between the institute and the central government or any state government or any other institute or organisation or members of the public…”
The notice also prohibited them from participating in a radio broadcast, publishing any article or writing a letter in any newspaper or magazine without the permission of “competent authority”.
“No employee shall in any radio broadcast or in any document published anonymously in his own name or in the name of any other person or in any communication to the press or in public utterance, make any statement of fact or opinion which has the effect of any adverse criticism of any current policy or action of the institute,” the notification said.
Singh told the daily that the notice was “a part of an exercise to remind the employees from time to time what are the service rules as laid down in the acts.”
“Many new faculties have joined recently. They may not be aware about the service rules,” the registrar said.
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However, the notice began with a sentence that reflects censorship more than anything else. “It has been observed that many a times institute employees are offering their views/publishing information etc. in the print / social media,” the notice said.
Several staff members at the institute, too, felt that the notice was in fact an order to restrain free speech in the campus, and stifle the autonomy of teachers by creating a fear of “retributive action”. Most of them who spoke to the newspaper declined to be named.
Activist Rahul Banerjee, who received the distinguished alumnus award in the institution’s convocation ceremony last year, told the daily, “Freedom of expression is the hallmark of any institution. The teachers and the students should have the right to express their views without any fear. There is an increasing trend to impose such restrictive orders to silence even the minuscule population that dares to speak on campuses.”
Similarly, Sabyasachi Sengupta, a former professor of electrical engineering at the institute, said:
“If employees cannot say anything that has a political tinge, how could director V.K. Tewari deliver an address on the Facebook page of ABVP Bengal (the student’s wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) on the coronavirus outbreak.”
The prohibitory order at IIT Kharagpur is the second such instance of a university in West Bengal. In April, the Indian Institute Of Engineering Science and Technology (IIEST) Shibpur, too, issued a notification to students prohibiting them from writing anything on social media on contemporary issues.
The order was issued when some students tagged the name of the institute while making a critical remark on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s appeal to light lamps in their balconies as a gesture against the COVID-19 epidemic.