Silence And Choreographed Timidity at South Asian University: Interview of Sasanka Perera by Anushka Kahandagamage and Kaushalya Kumarasinghe

Sri Lankan academic Sasanka Perera, left the South Asian University on 31 July 2024 which he had helped establish as a SAARC institution. His leaving was consequent to a targeted attack against him as the only Sri Lankan scholar in the university and one of handful of non-Indian teachers in a heavily Indian dominated space. Perera’s leaving and the widespread global coverage it received is significant black mark against academic freedom in India in general. It also marks the steady Indianization of the South Asian University which was meant to be a place of teaching and reflection for all South Asians. In this wide ranging interview, two former South Asian University students, Anushka Kahandagamage based in New Zealand and Kaushalya Kumarasinghe based in Sri Lanka speak to Perera at length about the incidents itself and its circumstances.

Prof. Sasanka Perera

Anushka Kahandagamage: Can you explain what the key factors were that led to your decision to resign from South Asian University? How much did the disciplinary inquiry influence your decision? Would you have stayed back had this incident not happened? 

Sasanka Perera: Let me be clear, technically, I did not resign but opted for early retirement, which is called ‘voluntary retirement’ as per Regulation 17.4 of the University. My date of retirement according to my contract with SAU is in August 2027. But I had planned to retire in August 2025 to begin some constantly postponed work for which I needed to be in Sri Lanka. The reason for August 2025 was to ensure that the four MA students under my supervision, all of whom are Indian, would graduate without a hassle. Incidentally, since the inquiry began, some students were not even given letters of recommendation by some colleagues simply because they were under my supervision. Such pettiness from academics, leave alone my own former colleagues, was utterly shocking.

But in real terms, you are right, my early retirement, can in fact be considered a resignation, simply because my decision to retire prematurely came from the way the disciplinary against me was conceited.  For instance, I did not see even a shadow of justice coming from the process. After all, it was begun very clearly based on trumped up charges and utterly irrational claims.

So quite simply, yes, if such an openly biased and unprofessional disciplinary inquiry against me, one of the seniormost founders of the university was  not begun and the if not for the illegal and unethical way it progressed, I would have stayed at SAU until 2025 and retired as I had planned on my own. But this became impossible.

I could see and as alluded to by some university administrators, there was an expectation that I would somehow sacrifice my PhD student to get out of the situation. Linked to this, there also was an anticipation that I would come begging to the Dean of Social Sciences and the SAU President seeking their “pardon”. Unfortunately this is not how I work.  This is also not I have worked at SAU in my 13 years there. These people should have known that from the facts on the ground. But they do not have any serious institutional memory.  For me, certain things are very clear and simple. One of these is, what is wrong is wrong. And I never have and never will pander to anyone’s wishes and diktats to save my own skin. Expectedly, this was not a welcome trait in the SAU environment which rewarded subservience.

Kaushalya Kumarasinghe: But did you try to seriously resolve this within the university before taking the decision to leave?

Sasanka Perera: Yes. From the beginning as all my written communications with the university would show.  For instance, I had requested through a formal communication to the SAU President dated 9 July 2024 to allow me to leave in August 2025 after my MA students graduated and the supervision of my PhD student was transferred to a colleague I trusted; or, secondly, to let me retire in December 2024 after I had finished teaching a course I had introduced at students’ request and after making arrangements for the continued supervision of my students, or as a third option, waive the immunity of the people who were levelling unsubstantiated charges against me, so that I could deal with this matter in courts without involving the university. None of these options were even acknowledged or responded to by the President. He in fact asked me to leave before the current semester began which hardly gave me enough time to put my domestic, personal and professional matters in order in this city where I had lived for 13 years. As a result, my pension has still not been paid.

In all these decisions by the university, no consideration was ever given to the fact that I had served it in senior capacities and had helped substantially elevate the reputation of the university in a very short span of time.

Had I left under normal circumstances as I had requested, none of the controversy and negative news coverage that spontaneously followed this incident globally would have happened. Clearly, the President and his bandwagon have to take responsibility for the negative press that SAU is getting these days.

Anushka Kahandagamage: As a sociologist and academic, how do you view the current state of academic freedom in South Asia, particularly considering your recent experience at SAU?  

Sasanka Perera: To put it mildly, academic freedom is in serious peril throughout the region and not just in India. In India, it has taken a serious toll in recent times. This has happened in University of Delhi; Jawaharlal Nehru University and numerous public and private universities across the country. The problem in South Asia, where most governments are anti-democratic, academic freedom is feared because it is seen as an avenue through which critique of unreasonable state practices, broader injustices as well as engagements with power structures might become inevitable. So, academic freedom is considered a threat.

This said, often the assault on academic freedom comes from within universities though this may be encouraged by governments in power. For example, SAU was established under the leadership of decent people and scholars based on principles such as academic freedom and fair play. I came to SAU from Sri Lanka giving up my old job at University of Colombo because I saw this as an opportunity to build a great institution. Throughout the time I was in positions of power and influence as Head of Sociology, Dean of Social Sciences and the Vice President, I was moved only by these principles. And whenever there were threats, I stood my ground as did many others.  But today, it is unfortunately no longer possible. And therefore, my penchant for calling ‘a spade a spade’ and standing up against what is wrong, did not sit well with the leadership and many others. Unfortunately, there is also a dearth of brave and sensible colleagues acting on principle. Instead, we have cowards only motivated by fear and their paycheck and led by a bunch of fools. Not even the welfare of students, who are the only reason we are all there, and the future of the institution in general matter to these people. When the new President was appointed, there was a sense of relief as there was an expectation that someone with experience would take over. I even wrote to some members of SAU’s Governing Board to encourage consideration of this appointment as we did not have much choice. SAU was already going down the drain in the hands of the acting coterie, which President Aggarwal has continued unabated. Looking at his performance generally and his role in the unwarranted attacks against me, what comes to my mind is an ancient Turkish proverb, “when a clown moves in to a palace, he does not become the king, but the palace becomes a circus.”

In this kind of situation, academic freedom will not stand a chance. To quote a recent piece in the Colombo Telegraph by Roshan Pussewela which I found very insightful, “Academic freedom is not merely a privilege but a necessary condition for intellectual progress. When this freedom is compromised, the integrity of the academic institution itself is called into question.”  The article further elaborates on the profound dangers of curtailing academic freedom: “The decision to force Prof. Perera into retirement can be viewed as a dangerous precedent. It sends a chilling message to other academics and students that engaging with controversial or politically sensitive topics can have severe consequences. This, in turn, can lead to self-censorship, where scholars avoid certain subjects out of fear for their careers. Such an environment is antithetical to the mission of higher education, which is to foster critical thinking, intellectual curiosity, and the free exchange of ideas.

Anushka Kahandagamage: How does this broader situation relate to what you experienced at SAU?

Sasanka Perera: What I quoted just now is the basic truth that my former colleagues have not understood. In SAU too, the inquiry against me was initiated by formal complaints by the Head of Sociology Dev Nath Pathak acting on a letter by a PhD candidate Antara Chakraborty and Dean of Social Sciences ably facilitated by the new SAU President K.K. Aggarwal. I find it distressing that PhD students have also been exploited in the unethical activities of the current Head of Department of Sociology. More insidiously, the colleagues in Sociology and across the university maintained such a deafening silence that they have ensured the university will never again stand for academic freedom in the future and politically sensitive social research, which are a necessity in our world.

In fact, colleagues who approved the proposal of the student working with me later gave statements to the inquiry committee trying to wiggle their way out of their responsibility essentially saying they had not seen the proposal.  By doing so, they willingly became a part of this project to throttle academic freedom. What is interesting is that all these colleagues consider themselves ‘critical scholars.’ How can you safeguard academic freedom when your own colleagues (academics) themselves act against this freedom? Serious reflective work with any semblance of political overtones will never be undertaken at SAU again. Moreover, they have also ensured that utterly unreasonable actions may also target any of them in the future if the authorities want to as they have now helped create a very dangerous precedence with my case and the previous suspension of four colleagues.

The university has already made its mark as a very mediocre place particularly for social sciences. There is no way it can grow under these conditions and under this kind of leadership. No serious students would want to or should come to SAU, as long as these conditions continue.

Kaushalya Kumarasinghe: In your opinion, what is the significance of Chomsky’s critique of the NDA government within the broader context of studying Kashmir’s ethnography and politics? 

Sasanka Perera: Prof Chomsky’s criticism of the Indian Prime Minister as a ‘Hindutva nationalist’ and also by extension, the NDA government in the interview by conducted my PhD student does not offer anything new. To be clear, it does not have any direct bearing on studying Kashmir.  This is merely a general criticism that Prof Chomsky has made earlier in different places and opted to repat in this interview too. Unfortunately however, SAU’s ‘thought police’ led by the Dean of Social Sciences Sanjay Chaturvedi seems to have missed all these precious statements which are still publicly available. Sanjay Chaturvedi ably led the pack unleashed upon me to attack academic freedom and the so-called critical scholars from sociology actively followed his diktats, and so did members of his own department of International Relations. Mr. Modi too has quite often and quite honestly described himself in these terms. If these people have a problem with these views, they should question the Prime Minister for describing himself as such in the first place. They could have also questioned Prof Chomsky.

Targeting my student and me for an opinion that neither of us have authored is beyond ridiculousness.  

I had asked Dean Chaturvedi in the so-called inquiry against me, if he was advising that our students do not read Chomsky. I had asked if he would give us a list of whom to quote and not to quote and what South Asian national leaders should or should not be mentioned in research proposals and dissertations. I did not get any answer. Besides, Kashmir-related things and other so called sensitive issues in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar have previously been studied by colleagues. These themes have also been studied by students under the supervision of Indian colleagues. The issue here is that the student concerned is not just from Kashmir, but a Muslim and the supervisor, which is me, happens to be non-Indian. This is a classic example of the extreme parochiality in terms of ethnicity, religion  and nationality now apparent in SAU coming to the fore.

But there is another clear message. For his role in this affair, Sanjay Chaturvedi has been rewarded by the President by making him the Director of the Institute of South Asian Studies, for which the initial groundwork and planning was done by me and another colleagues years ago. And true to the way patron-client relations work, Chaturvedi’s first action as to invited SAU’s own president for the inaugural edit ion of what is supposed to be a regular lecture series, and describe I public as the ’man of the decade’ and ‘the man of the century.’ I felt truly ashamed through I had already left SAU.

*To be continued…