ABSTRACT
Against a backdrop of the specific historical trajectories of the Indian public university, this essay poses a set of keen questions about its continuing relevance in both serving as well as critiquing state formations. While worldwide trends in higher education portend a future for the ‘idea’ of the university – as being surmounted by market principles and a managerial economy of outcomes – the Indian context begs being read in the light of its own pasts and promises. The contemporary surfeit of state-sponsored clampdowns on intellectual spaces in the country requires of us a reasoned debate about possible modes of defence. However, in our laudatory attempts at hailing traditions of academic autonomy, we must renew the university’s pledge to self-reflection as a ‘public good’. What and who constitutes this ‘publicness’ of its character, and how might an engaged positioning of such institutions within democratic agendas of public interest revive their future potential? It is within such frames of critical re-assessment that public perceptions around the Indian university – as increasingly a site of ‘provocation’, anxiety and control – may be productively addressed.
