The Department of Economics, Ashoka University, in an open letter to the University’s governing body on Wednesday, August 16, demanded that the institution “unconditionally” offer Sabyasachi Das his position as Assistant Professor at the University. This development comes days after Sabyasachi left the institution after his paper suggesting that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) possibly committed electoral fraud in the 2019 general elections stirred a major controversy. Demanding that the governing body unconditionally offer to reoffer Sabyasachi his position unconditionally and also affirm that it will play no role in evaluating faculty research, the letter said, “Unless these questions regarding basic academic freedoms are resolved before the start of the Monsoon 2023 semester, faculty members of the department will find themselves unable to carry forward their teaching obligations in the spirit of critical enquiry and the fearless pursuit of truth that characterise our classrooms.”
Ashoka University had earlier drawn criticism for distancing itself from Sabyasachi’s paper. The University had said that it was “dismayed” by the speculation and debate around it. “To the best of our knowledge, the paper in question has not yet completed a critical review process and has not been published in an academic journal. Social media activity or public activism by Ashoka faculty, students or staff in their individual capacity does not reflect the stand of the University,” it had said.
In their letter to the governing body, the faculty at the Department of Economics said that the offer of resignation by their colleague Sabyasachi and its “hasty acceptance” by the University has deeply ruptured the faith of the department, colleagues and students towards the University’s leadership.
Defending Sabyasachi, the open letter said that he did not violate any accepted norms of academic practice and went on to add that the governing body’s interference in this process to investigate the merits of his recent study constitutes institutional harassment, curtails academic freedom, and forces scholars to operate in an environment of fear. “We condemn this in the strongest terms and refuse as a collective to cooperate in any future attempt to evaluate the research of individual economics faculty members by the Governing Body,” the letter said.
“The Ashoka Economics department has been painstakingly built into what is widely considered amongst the preeminent economics departments in the country. The actions of the Governing Body pose an existential threat to the department. It is likely to precipitate an exodus of faculty, and prevent us from attracting new faculty,” it further said.
In his academic paper, Sabyasachi suggested that during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP won disproportionately more seats than it lost, in constituencies where they contested closely with a rival. According to him, such 'disproportionate' wins were never observed in past elections by BJP or Congress, and also that they were mainly seen in states ruled by BJP at that time. His paper cites that the reasons for this could be that either the BJP committed electoral fraud or it was able to accurately predict closely contested seats and mobilise party workers to campaign more intensively.
The paper suggested that there could have been targeted disenfranchisement of Muslim voters, particularly in Muslim-dominated constituencies where the BJP’s chances of winning were very close to its opponent. The paper also noted that the final count of the EVM votes from the Election Commission of India (ECI) website and the number of EVM votes that were actually counted also did not always match and were particularly mismatched in closely contested constituencies.
Sabyasachi concluded the paper by saying, “The tests are…not proofs of fraud, nor does it suggest that manipulation was widespread. Proving electoral manipulation in a robust democracy is a significantly harder task that would require detailed investigation of electoral data in each constituency separately.”