Author: Saurabh Shukla
Publication: The Indian
Express
Date: August 23, 2000
It may just be the beginning
of a war of sorts at the Centre for Policy Research here, following the
dismissal of one of its permanent professors, Brahma Chellaney.
Sources close to Chellaney
say on August 17, the professor's office was locked, and in the evening,
the Director, Professor Pai Panindikar handed him a letter saying: ``Hereby
your services are terminated with immediate effect.''
Chellaney is in the US
and is returning on August 31. The waterholes for Delhi's strategic affairs
community, the India International Centre and India Habitat Centre bars,
are abuzz with stories related to Chellaney's exit and many see it as a
war between the doves and the hawks.
Chellaney's sacking is
surprising as he is among the three permanent members of the CPR. The other
two are Panindikar and Professor S. Wadhwa. All the other posts at the
Centre are on contract basis. Professor Panindikar could not be contacted
for a comment.
The battlelines were
reportedly drawn after Chellaney, a known hawk, authored a controversial
article, Rise of the robber intellectual, in The Hindustan Times on July
26.
In the article, Chellaney
came down heavily on some academicians, especially those working for various
think-tanks, for liberally taking foreign funding. ``A new class of foreign-funded
academic entrepreneurs, adept at political string-pulling, is emerging.
He who pays the piper calls the tune. We all know that money buys influence,''
he said in the article.
Some strategic affairs
experts say the action against Chellaney is disciplinary and the notice
was served two-three weeks ago. Sources also say Chellaney was drawing
salary from two different institutions, the CPR and Australian National
University, which is not permitted under the rules. They add that Chellaney
has no moral authority to question academics as he himself has received
some of the foreign funding he talks about.
Chellaney's article was
seen to be targeting many academics working at universities like JNU and
some even at CPR, including Panandikar, earning their ire. The CPR has
been taking foreign funds liberally from 1993 onwards, with foreign funding
outdoing government funding in the Union Budget now. Prominent foreign
donors who have funded the CPR include the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller
Foundation. However, according to sources, while CPR receives huge amounts
of foreign funds right now, the funds allocated to it in the Budget by
the Ministry of Human Resource Development are increasing.
Chellaney wrote in his
article: ``Can academic independence and integrity remain uncompromised
after money is taken from foreign agencies?'' According to him, the private
concerns of funding agencies often start dictating the research priorities
of the recipient institute and, in the process, impinge on the academic
rationale of its existence. In many instances, the projects that foreign
donors fund may be contrary not only to the organisation's mandate but
also to the national interest. The article added: ``Select intellectuals
are funded to conduct research and disseminate their `findings' through
academic publications.''
Incidentally, earlier
this year, Chellaney was also dropped from the newly constituted National
Security Advisory Board.
