What ails MU's study and research centres?

Around five years ago, on December 6, 2020, a senior Shiv Sena minister led the ground-breaking ceremony of what was to be a world-class study and research centre on the legacy of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, founder of India's Dalit movement and architect of the Indian Constitution, at the Kalina campus of the University of Mumbai.

- Niraj Pandit

MUMBAI: The event, presided over by then minister for higher and technical education and currently industries minister, Uday Samant, was conducted with much fanfare and attended by then chief minister, Uddhav Thackeray.

The centre was to be the go-to research academy for scholars, faculty and students from all over the world, anyone who wanted to immerse themselves in the life and work of Dr Ambedkar.

It appears to have been no more than a pipe dream, for five years later, the centre functions out of temporary premises in the absence of a permanent space. And while it offers a Master's degree and a diploma, its goals remain frustratingly out of reach.

Study and research centres such as this have been in focus since a new study centre named after Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, who shaped the Hindutva ideology, was inaugurated recently. Many of the older ones, at the university's Kalina campus, are barely limping along, keeping themselves afloat via workshops and lectures, and the occasional academic programme. Lacking funding and absent from the university's priority list, some of these centres operate out of vacant classrooms and office spaces.

Announced by politicians, academics say these centres are either little more than publicity stunts targeting specific vote banks or serve to appease senior political figures. With a vision as myopic as this, how can these research centres achieve their grand academic ambitions?