Tamil Nadu Governor R N Ravi, facing an unprecedented boycott by state university leaders at his annual vice chancellors’ conference in Ooty, alleged on Friday that the state government had warned VCs against participating in the event and that some were even threatened by the police special branch.
“Unfortunately, state universities are not participating,” Ravi said at the conference attended mostly by representatives from private and central universities.
“They have informed me, even in writing, that they have been warned by the state government not to participate. One of our VCs is in the police station today. One VC reached Ooty, but something unprecedented happened – there were midnight knocks at the doors, where secret police, the special branch of the state, went and told them that if they participated in the event, the would not be able to go home,” he alleged.
“I advised them: take care of your family, don’t jeopardise your interests,” he said.
The Governor’s remarks – made in the presence of Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, who inaugurated the conference – come amid a deepening row with Chief Minister M K Stalin’s government over control of the state’s universities. Just 18 of the 56 invited vice chancellors or their representatives attended the conference. There were only two representatives from state universities and neither of them were vice chancellors.
In his speech at the event, Ravi painted a bleak picture of higher education in Tamil Nadu’s public sector. “In 2021, when I met students, including gold medallists, I found their aspirations were too low – maximum a government job,” he said. “We studied the education system in the state and found two parallel streams – private schools doing excellently and government schools in decline. More than half the students can’t read a class 2 textbook. Then we found it is a continuation in state universities too,” he said.
Ravi cited statistics: “We produce 6,500 PhDs every year in state universities. But of all of them, not even one was NET-JRF qualified. That determines the eligibility mandate… We found PhD graduates doing menial jobs for Rs 14,000-15,000 a month. It wasn’t a happy finding… On one hand, we produce degree and PhD holders, and on the other, they are worthy of nothing…,” he said.
Ravi asserted that efforts since 2022, especially among deemed universities, had begun to show results, citing an uptick in intellectual property filings and scholarship opportunities. “Maximising learning through AI is something we are probing now,” he said. “Unfortunately, state universities are not participating.”
Inaugurating the conference, Vice President Dhankhar began by leading the gathering in a moment of silence for the victims of the recent terror attack in Kashmir. “Terrorism is a global menace,” he said. “Bharat is the world’s most peaceful nation. Our civilisational ethos, reflected in vasudhaiva kutumbakam, is getting global resonance. Our visionary leadership has given assurance that the nation’s progress can’t be handicapped by any situation, internal or external,” Dhankhar said.
He also urged academics to thoroughly study and implement the National Education Policy. “It is a policy for the nation. It’s for all to adopt, execute, and benefit,” he said, calling India’s many classical languages, including “Tamil, Sanskrit and Hindi” as “goldmines of literature”.
The Governor’s conference – once a routine academic exercise – has, in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling curbing the Governor’s role in university affairs, become a lightning rod for the state’s bitter tussle over federalism and educational autonomy. The boycott by state universities was preceded by public calls from Left parties and followed Chief Minister Stalin’s own well-attended VCs’ meeting just a week earlier.
DMK Rajya Sabha MP P Wilson condemned the Governor’s comments.
“I condemn these false and irresponsible statements made by Thiru R N Ravi… How can a Governor make such baseless allegations against his own government?
“These kind of false statements that tend to excite subversive activities against the government of Tamil Nadu constitute a serious crime. The Governor should not abuse his immunity under Art 361(2),” Wilson said.
He claimed that the vice chancellors did not attend the Governor’s conference because “they understand that your intention is to poison our universities with a particular ideology and politicise them”.