A NEW CODE OF SILENCE ON CAMPUS

“Silence like a cancer grows” —Paul Simon

- JOHN J KENNEDY

NCE known for intellectual risk-taking and passionate disagreements, India’s university campuses today feel subdued.

Anew caution hangs in the ai! shaping conversations and silences alike. This sinister shift has occurred not through dramatic crackdowns but through small, incremental decisions that have collectively altered the academic spirit in many higher educational institutions.

Instances of a talk quietly cancelled, ‘controversial’ speakers disinvited, or an uncomfortable theme dropped from the syllabus are becoming all too familiar. Each of these decisions may appear minor and even pragmatic. University administrators describe such actions as necessary precautions in polarised times. But taken together, they reveal the slow unmaking of the once-vibrant, plural Indian university into a space defined by anxiety, not curiosity.

For decades, campuses in India were arenas of contestation. Lecture halls echoed with debates on varied subjects such as justice, development and identity. Professors frequently disagreed publicly and modelled disagreement as a scholarly virtue. From professors, students learned that knowledge grew through friction rather than consensus.

Unfortunately, that ethos is fading. More worryingly, it is slowly being replaced by a cautious search for safety over intellectual challenge. This becomes clear when university managements usually frame controversial decisions in the language of risk management, suchasconcernsabout reputation, regulatory pressure or security threats.