The Silent Crisis at Delhi’s CSDS. A Fund Freeze after Show-Cause Notice

Antara Baruah | 08 December 2025 | The Print

There was a time when academics would abandon teaching posts at Ivy League universities, leading DU colleges and submerge themselves in intellectual freedom and dogged rigour at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. They’d come to Rajpur Road in New Delhi and turn thinking into a full-time profession. 

But over the last few months, the research institute, an awning under which once sat India’s best and brightest minds, has been in a state of soundless turmoil. At one level, it’s business as usual—there are scholars in the library, professors in their offices, and seminars that continue to be held. Work is ongoing. But from being India’s most influential research institute, known for larger-than-life thinkers like Rajni Kothari, Ashis Nandy, and Dhirubhai Sheth, who built an India-centric political theory and reupholstered ideas of media and democracy, it’s now another crucial space trapped under the weight of its laurels and history—as well as a country that’s changed irrevocably…

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