Saturday 4 June 2016

CSDS Saga Part 2


Lawlessness in the Name of "Self-Governance" at CSDS
None Called to Account for Non Performance or Absenteeism

In Part 1 of this series, I had provided a glimpse of lawless regime operating at CSDS whereby there is no system of marking attendance, no limit on the amount of time faculty members can spend on varied assignments abroad, no need to declare the extra income earned from these parallel careers and remunerative consultancies with the likes of Ford Foundation. I had also described how the absence of academic audit of faculty members who are employed for full time research without any teaching load in effect means you can get away with doing practically nothing for years on end or using the institution for political pamphleteering instead of academic studies.

The founding fathers of CSDS had conceptualized this institution to be a haven of academic freedom where each faculty member was free to decide the content, quality and pace of his own work. However, even in the heydays of CSDS, this model threw up serious challenges. As per the version given by CSDS seniors, in the 1980's three senior colleagues,  namely Prof Ali Baquar, Prof Sudhir Kakkar and Prof Vijay Pillai had gotten into the habit of coming to CSDS just once a week on Wednesday for a couple of hours even though they held full time faculty positions at CSDS.  Therefore, they came to be sarcastically referred to as the Budhwari group.

Friday 3 June 2016

CSDS Saga Part 1

"Self-Governance" Leftist Style
CSDS Claims all Government Benefits but Defies all Systems of Accountability

On 1st May 2016, I had published the text of my legal notice to CSDS challenging their brazen act of discrimination in denying me affiliation to the organization in order to avail of the prestigious Mahatma Gandhi National Fellowship awarded to me by the Indian Council for Social science Research (ICSSR). The ostensible reason provided by the CSDS for denying/indefinitely deferring my affiliation for the two-year duration of the Mahatma Gandhi National Fellowship is that a special committee of CSDS faculty is still in the process of drafting “rules for self governance.”  Therefore, in the absence of “norms” the institution is unable to offer me affiliation.

Had this been even half honest explanation, I would not have picked up cudgels with CSDS. (See Link: CSDS: A Citadel of "Academic Freedom" Unmasked").

It is noteworthy that today CSDS is the only one among the 32 research institutions funded by the Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR) which gets 100 percent of its grant-in-aid towards staff salaries and building fund from the ICSSR – an organization created by the ministry of HRD to fund social science research in India. As a government funded institution, CSDS is expected to follow rules and norms applicable to public funded institutions.[1] That includes well-established procedures of accountability, transparency, fair play, non-discrimination, and rules that are applicable to all without fear or favour.  However, CSDS has been functioning in the most lawless fashion, as the following account will show.

The malafide intent behind denying me affiliation on the specious plea that rules of "self governance" had not yet been finalised is evident from the fact that absence of "norms for self-governance" never came in the way of:
  1. Over 200 scholars, including ICSSR fellowship holders, being granted affiliation to CSDS under various heads in the last 15 years, 
  2. Recruiting several new faculty members;
  3. Starting of new programmes, projects and even a whole new “Institute” without as much as a formal permission of the Board of Governors(of this more in another part of this series);
  4. A faculty member negotiating collaboration with the Gottingen University for setting up an International Centre for Advanced Study in CSDS.
  5. Inviting Visiting Fellows from abroad for short and long periods, involving huge expense to the Centre;
  6. Faculty members going out for lucrative assignments abroad involving frequent long absences from CSDS;
  7. Faculty members applying for funding for this or that Project or Program from international donor agencies, including those agencies that are under investigation by the Government of India.

Saturday 21 May 2016

CSDS: A Citadel Of “Academic Freedom” Unmasked

Reproduced from Swarajyamag.com  (2nd May, 2016)  Click Here . 

In response to historian Sanjay Subramaniam’s charge in The SundayTimes (20 December 2015) that the coming of BJP government had endangered academic freedom in India because of growing atmosphere of “intolerance” being engineered by the NDA government, I had sent a rejoinder to TOI on 22nd December saying that the leftists were crying wolf since they still retained Stalinist type control over most academic institutions and that it was not the Left but those who dissented with the Left who remained endangered and marginalized.

Giving my own example, I wrote “I was invited to join the CSDS when it was not a Left citadel. In today’s CSDS, I wouldn’t even get a peon’s job!” (My rejoinder was published in The SundayTimes on 3rd January 2016).

I had no idea that the ruling coterie at CSDS would want to prove me right so soon, so brazenly and with such vengeance.

I was invited to join the CSDS in 1991 when the founding fathers of CSDS were still at the helm of affairs. They considered me a valuable addition to CSDS on account of my role as editor of Manushi and my own research, writing and active interventions which were nationally and internationally celebrated as having pioneered new thinking and socially rooted approach to women’s and human rights issues. In those days, CSDS was a genuine citadel of liberalism and therefore much hated and defamed by the Left. Therefore, voices like mine were welcomed, not throttled.

Madhu Kishwar

Madhu Kishwar
इक उम्र असर होने तक… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …اک عمر اثر ہونے تک