Let’s continue with the letter from the sepoys:

“Under Mr. Modi’s tenure as Prime Minister, academic freedom is also at risk: foreign scholars have been denied entry to India to attend international conferences, there has been interference with the governance of top Indian universities and academic institutions such as the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, the Indian Institutes of Technology and Nalanda University; as well as underqualified or incompetent key appointments made to the Indian Council of Historical Research, the Film and Television Institute of India, and the National Book Trust. ”

Ha ha… Nalanda “University”? Looks like Dynastycrook Amartya Sen is really butthurt that he could not grab the entire Rs 2700 crore to create his 7 schools of bullshit:

Film and Television Institute of India? That retirement center for Uncleji students who take decades to complete a 3 year course? Let me put it this way: unless FTII actually graduates students, it cannot be considered a university. Just like Babri Masjid wasn’t actually a mosque because no prayers were held…

Now let us come to the question of “academic freedom”. Wait, first let us talk about “freedom” in India as a whole. It is a pity that I have to actually dig out the history that these sepoys (who allegedly do research in history) should have. Actually, for a tiny period after independence, India used to have free speech. Until…the RSS mouthpiece Organizer dared to criticize Nehru. Then this happened:

“In Brij Bhushan v State of Bihar (8), the chief commissioner of Delhi passed an order under Section 7 (1) (c) of the East Punjab Public Safety Act, 1949 against an English weekly from Delhi called the Organizer. If in the Romesh Thapar case the order was against the far left, in this case the order was against the far right, as the Organizer was the mouthpiece of the RSS. The commissioner had issued the order against the Organizer for printing inflammatory materials with respect to the Partition. As per the order, the editor of the Organizer had to submit for scrutiny, before publication, all communal matter and news and views about Pakistan including photographs and cartoons other than those derived from official sources or supplied by the news agencies, viz, Press Trust of India, United Press of India and United Press of America. The question arose as to whether this order of pre-censorship could be held to be constitutionally valid. This decision was delivered on the same day as the Romesh Thapar case, and the majority in this case referred to their decision in Thapar’s case and concurred with the findings in the Thapar case. The key factor in both the decisions was the fact that the phrase ‘public order’ was not included in Article 19 (2) and that the courts interpreted restrictions on freedom of speech and expression as being legitimate only if they pertained to “undermining the security of the state or

overthrowing the state”. Mere criticism of the government could not be considered as speech which could be restricted for the purposes of