Professor who quit over Sabyasachi Das row says Ashoka University didn’t place ‘slightest restraint’ on him

NEW DELHI: Ashoka University professor Pulapre Balakrishnan who quit following a row over the resignation of economist Sabyasachi Das from the institution, has written a letter saying the university didn’t place the "slightest restraint" on his thoughts in class or when he wrote in the media and marched on the streets for right.

Balakrishnan, a professor who joined the university's economics department in 2015, on Saturday wrote to Ashoka University Chancellor Rudrangshu Mukherjee and board of trustees chairperson Pramath Raj Sinha explaining his reasons for his resignation. He said he did so because he believed "there was a grave error of judgment in the response to the attention received by Das' paper (Democratic Backsliding in the World's Largest Democracy) on social media".

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"Academic freedom was violated in the response, and it would be unconscionable for me to remain," he wrote in the two-page letter reviewed by PTI. Das quit a fortnight after the university publicly distanced itself from his working paper that alleged electoral manipulation in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Balakrishnan joined Ashoka after working at Oxford University, the Indian Statistical Institute, The Indian Institute of Management in Kozhikode and the World Bank.

He said he would welcome the governing body's reported decision to invite Das to return to the post he had resigned from. If the news wasn't true, he said he would request the leadership to consider doing just that. "As for myself, I am moving on," he said. Author of several well-regarded books, including most recently “India's Economy from Nehru to Modi”, Balakrishnan said he has offered to stay and complete his teaching responsibilities for the semester.

"In any case, as I am not going to be here for much longer, I owe you both this letter. I wish to place on record that in these eight years I have been here, the university has been true to its word. I have written extensively in the media, marched on the streets for my rights and expressed my thoughts in class without the slightest restraint placed in my path," he said.