Furore over Ashoka University economist’s paper on 2019 elections exposes ‘pressure’ on academia

NEW DELHI: At the end of July, yet another academic found himself in the crosshairs of the supporters of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). This time it was Ashoka University economics professor, Sabyasachi Das, for his paper, ‘Democratic Backsliding in the World’s Largest Democracy”. Yet unpublished, it suggests electoral manipulation by the BJP in the 2019 elections.

The paper’s salient points were shared in a thread of posts on X – erstwhile Twitter – and suggested, mainly, that in close elections electoral manipulation have a wider significance and need engagement. It was based on data from the Election Commission of India (ECI) and according to academics, closely followed similar studies in other countries.

The backlash was immense and instantaneous. Apart from debating the merit of the paper itself – on this, there’s much difference of opinion even among those not in the BJP camp – many suggested that the very topic and the hints at election manipulation amount to sedition.

“This is the sad part that a paper is criticised not for the rigour of the research or the methodology but only on its findings. The findings are seen with the likes and dislikes of the people in academia who are related or not related with the BJP. Both criticism and appreciation are coming from an ideological vantage point and not from a methodological point,” said Sanjay Kumar, professor and co-director, Lokniti, a research programme focusing on elections and democratic processes at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi.

The spokesperson for the ECI – whose data was used in the study – had “no comment” on whether a study like this is “seditious” from the perspective of the commission.

‘First systematic documentation’

According to Yogendra Yadav, political activist and analyst, psephologist and founder of Jai Kisan Andolan and Swaraj India, Das’s paper is “the first instance of a systematic documentation, a careful sifting of various kinds of malpractices and coming to a fairly delimited but critical area”.

“The strength of the paper is that it is specific and not general. It looks at specific hypotheses with careful empirical evidence,” added Yadav. “It’s a first sophisticated attempt at understanding the nature of electoral malpractices under the present regime. So far, most of the allegations about malpractice were simply allegations. In this paper, for the first time, we can see that yes there is some malpractice and instead of being indiscriminate, he has very carefully delineated it. In my mind it is also in sync with what I get to hear on the ground,” stated Yadav.

Kumar has a different take. He finds that the paper needs “more evidence”. “ The argument and conclusion are very strong but supporting evidence is not that strong. Though there is evidence, it is weak in comparison to the conclusion drawn,” he said.

The paper was selected for presentation at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Summer Institute 2023 at Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, a private non-partisan organisation promoting research in economics.

But beyond alleging election manipulation, the paper also exposed the very precarious position of academics undertaking research in contentious, politically sensitive fields.

Ashoka University

After a day of their teacher facing online bashing on July 31, Ashoka University carefully distanced itself from the paper with this statement on August 1: “Ashoka values research that is critically peer-reviewed and published in reputed journals. To the best of our knowledge, the paper in question has not yet completed a critical review process and has not been published in an academic journal. Social media activity or public activism by Ashoka faculty, students or staff in their individual capacity does not reflect the stand of the University.”

Ashoka University is dismayed by the speculation and debate around a recent paper by one of its faculty members (Sabyasachi Das, Assistant Professor of Economics) and the university's position on its contents.

As a matter of record, Ashoka University is focused on excellence in…

— Ashoka University (@AshokaUniv) August 1, 2023

Opinion was divided also on Ashoka’s stand.

“The paper is still not peer-reviewed or published anywhere. And you can't expect the university to back you on everything a researcher writes. Even Lokniti’s website has a disclaimer stating that the author's views do not reflect the organisation's stand,” reasoned Kumar.

Yadav held a similar view. “A scholar’s paper is a scholar’s paper and a university doesn’t own it. But it is a remark on the state of academic freedom in our country. The anxiety that the university has to go through shows how much pressure academia is in our country,” he said.

Academic freedom, criticism

Others, however, have been more unequivocal about the paper and the university. Leher, a students’ group within Ashoka issued a statement of solidarity saying: “It has become a trend for any writing for public or academic consumption that critiques the ruling government but what is perhaps more concerning is Ashoka University’s reaction to this. The university recently released a statement on twitter quickly distancing itself from the work and clarifying that it does not support any faculty’s stand. This clarification, especially at the time at which it was released, was highly undesirable and undermines the university’s commitment to protecting their researchers. ”

Another Ashoka researcher, asking not to be named, argued that a think-tank or a university cannot flourish under such scrutiny. “I question the take down on more than one year of work in just five tweets. Research papers are written for a specific audience. While all papers have some flaws, knowledge generation has a process where a researcher writes a paper, others specify the weaknesses leading to improvement, and that’s how knowledge is generated. No paper is perfect,” he added.

Noor Mohammad, former electoral management expert at India International Institute of Democracy and Election Management (IIIDEM), an institution in Delhi that was born out of the ECI, pointed out that the paper has earmarked few areas on which the election commission was questioned on voter count after the results were declared in 2019. The Quint had covered alleged ‘discrepancies’ in voter data and the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) had filed a petition in the Supreme Court of India.

Rammanohar Reddy, editor at The Indian Forum after a few days of the controversy wrote on the microblogging platform: “There is a much larger issue in the academic world. We have KS James of IIPS Mumbai suspended; we have had Sabyasachi Das attacked, Ashoka University distancing itself from his work, and, as in every week, a Pune teacher earlier this week charged for ‘hurting sentiments’.”