Universities Cannot Be Told to Behave Silenced Abhishek Singhvi
21 June 2025 | The Week
New Delhi, Jun 21 (PTI) Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi has called for enacting strong legal protection for academic freedom and autonomy and said varsities should not merely prepare students for employment, but for engagement.
Singhvi said if democracy is to endure not just as a ballot-box ritual but as a way of life, then its "beating heart' must lie not in Parliament alone, but in universities.
He made the remarks speaking to a gathering of vice chancellors of Japanese universities, administrators, diplomats, professors and members of civil society in Tokyo in a lecture on 'Universities of the Future.'
The Minister of Education of Japan also attended the lecture.
"It is there that the grammar of inquiry as much as of dissent is learned, the alphabet of citizenship is practised and the poetry of pluralism is composed," the Rajya Sabha MP said, according to a statement he issued on Saturday.