Columns

It was not too long ago that the Health Minister, who wears several official hats, promised the new government would not interfere with the media’s freedom of expression.

His intention no doubt was to disabuse the minds of some media institutions, big and small, that they would not perish under the governmental pressure of a political alliance that had a history in days gone by of perpetuating authoritarianism and that its modern ideological handlers would do the same if in power.

Hardly had a few weeks passed after Minister Nalinda Jayatissa’s soothing words were uttered in the obvious hope of satisfying the wide range of social media operating in the country and outside and even sections of the mainstream media that an uproar erupted at the University of Peradeniya.

At this prestigious university, where a public discussion sponsored by a student union was on the cards, the university’s acting vice chancellor had clamped down on the planned lecture, and the original venue of the lecture was banned to those who had looked forward to hearing another version of Sri Lanka’s dealings with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

What is this earth-shattering public lecture that had shaken the university administration to its spinelessness to rush to ban it and even arouse an uproar in the student—and perhaps in the academic community or sections of it—that it was ready to take the risk of being castigated in the media and elsewhere?

The topic of the subject planned for that day was this: “How to fight against the IMF austerity programme”.

Oh for heaven’s sake! If the administration of a university that was born in the early days of independence, creating a climate of academic freedom that allows freedom of speech and expression, is shaken to such fear that it will not allow a subject that would even be approved for debate at a school debating society, then these administrators who are ready to surrender their rights and the rights of a university that must survive on academic freedom should throw away the fancy cloaks they wear and retreat from academic life and go pluck a few coconuts.

What adds disgrace to disgust is the directive the vice chancellor issued calling for a change in the subject of the lecture “so as not to appear that the meeting challenges the government policies or else consider the above meeting be suspended immediately.”

So is this gutless administration probably hiding in the grass bushes along the Mahaweli banks or taking refuge in the hills of Hantane, telling the people of Sri Lanka that a university community should not ever question government policies but weakly and obsequiously acquiesce to every stupidity that passes as government policy?

The University of Peradeniya was built to provide a generation of free-thinking undergraduates ready to engage in intellectual and political discourse, debate the issues of the day, and create a vibrant society as those who dreamt of a university in the environmentally salubrious climate of Peradeniya envisaged.

Instead of encouraging social and political intercourse in an environment that was intended to energise academic, cultural interchange, and intellectual discourse and produce a breed of new, thinking youth who will contribute to creating a vibrant nation in the early years of its independence, what do we find but academic straitjackets of little worth but to push pen and file in some state institution?

The words of the vice chancellor’s directive are sufficient cause to rethink what our universities are and should be instead of signal posts that raise their hands from the confines of the Senate Building Office or the comfort of “The Lodge” and then go seeking safety under a bed, fearing the verbal reactions of a student community that is sick and tired of academic administrators more concerned with protecting their positions instead of working for the well-being of university education.

There are surely those who remember that Sir Ivor Jennings, in his autobiography, strove to have our universities based on the twin principles of academic freedom and university autonomy.

I remember when covering the proceedings of the old parliament by the sea, then Education Minister I.M.R.A. Iriyagolle decrying university autonomy and fighting with great determination to dispense with freedom for the universities to act as true institutions of higher education.

Some might recall the determination of the Supreme Court on the Universities (Amendment) Bill of 1999, which recognised that academic freedom and university autonomy are protected by the 1978 constitution of the President J.R. Jayewardene era under the chapter on fundamental rights.

It means that freedom of thought and conscience and equal protection of the law include those rights, as those conversant with the law have pointed out.

There were those who accused sections of the government, especially Education Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya, of having instigated the ban and boycott of the lecture.

Dr. Amarasuriya promptly denied any involvement in this despicable episode, especially the defence advanced by the acting vice chancellor, by stupidly claiming that such a lecture would appear to suggest it was challenging government policies.

Whoever drafted that piece of hogwash in the name of the acting vice chancellor has publicly conceded that he had done what he had done to protect the position of the government.

The implication of that argument is that the government must not come under criticism and scrutiny of its policies if it would be construed as questioning of government policy.

Where in the world or in democratic societies is it claimed that their universities are prohibited from questioning government policy?

That is why I am surprised that our media, especially the mainstream media, seem to have avoided critical comments on this episode, which has brought our prestigious University of Peradeniya into disrepute.

Moreover, some media have taken the opportunity of mentioning the names of some heads of department and senior lecturers involved in conveying the message from the vice chancellor but continued to avoid mentioning the name of the person behind the cancellation order.

Why? Is he so precious that he should avoid exposure and stricture?

As one who spent four years as a residential undergraduate at Peradeniya from 1958 to 62, some of whose batchmates are still in contact and enjoyed life when nothing could stop some politically associated societies from criticising visiting politicians, including government members, from the audience, one feels ashamed even to admit having passed through those groves of academe when hearing of the rubbish who now run universities.

(Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who was assistant editor of the Hong Kong Standard and worked for Gemini News Service in London. Later, he was deputy chief of mission in Bangkok and deputy high commissioner in London).