Academics and activists movement have issued a signature campaign, demanding the end of the harassment allegedly meted out to Dr Deepak Malghan, an associate professor at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIM Bangalore) by the institute’s administration.
The campaigners also condemned the “misuse of Service rules by Academic Institutions to erode Academic Freedom.”
In the statement accompanying the campaign, the signatories of the campaign alleged “long-running vindictive harassment and persecution” of Dr Malghan by IIM Bangalore, pointing out several instances of alleged censuring, institutional backlash, and restrictions placed on him by the institution’s administration.
Further, the academics allege that his demotion from Professor to Assistant Professor in March this year was also similarly “politically motivated”.
Dr Deepak Malghan, a chemical engineer and ecological economist, has received several Indian and international awards for “research that transcends academic boundaries”, including the Dr VKRV Rao Award in Social Sciences in 2015 and the TN Kushoo Memorial Award in 2023. He is also an associate researcher at the Stockholm Environment Institute and edited the journal Ecological Economics between 2018 and 2023.
In addition to his academic achievements, Dr Malghan is also known for his activism and campaigns — for which, he received censure orders and disciplinary inquiries, the statement alleges.
Some of his campaigns include:
Campaign for Corporate Accountability against Hindustan Unilever Limited, where he urged students not to invite the conglomerate for campus placements in June 2018, due to the latter’s failure to compensate for or remedy the damage caused by a mercury poisoning from its thermometer factory in Kodaikanal
Campaign for Diversity at Higher Educational Institutions, where he criticised IIMs for not following statutory and constitutional affirmative action policies, leading to a “social diversity deficit at IIMs”
Campaign to Defund Hate, where he urged corporate India to not fund hateful rhetoric and ideologies
Most of these campaigns were met with Censure Orders.
“Dr Malghan has also been a leading public voice from within, resisting the sectarian and communal onslaught on one of India’s finest public institutions. The recent “demotion” by IIMB is only the culmination of a series of persecutions that he has been subject to since 2018… they are clearly related to the issue of academic freedom,” reads the statement.
According to the statement, in 2022, IIM Bengaluru set up an inquiry committee against Dr Malghan for complaints based on two posts made by him on X (formerly Twitter), which they claimed violated the Service Rules of the institute.
However, when the committee found him not guilty of any violations, the institution’s Disciplinary Committee “decided to disregard the findings of its own Inquiry Committee”, and the Director of IIM Bangalore decided to withhold Dr Malghan’s promotion for one year, the statement alleges. Following this, Dr Malghan decided to approach the Karnataka High Court.
In the meanwhile, following another complaint against Dr Malghan for his social media activity by a Board Member in 2023 and subsequent inquiries, the Director passed an order on March 2024 demoting him with immediate effect and prohibiting him from posting about IIM Bangalore on any public forum.
In addition, the order also called for basic pay reduction and withholding of annual increments, the statement says.
After Dr Malghan challenged this order in the Karnataka High Court, he was given an injunction.
Stating that Dr Malghan’s efforts are “devoted to upholding India’s constitutional values,” the signatories of the statement “condemn the use of service rules to stifle academic freedom.”
“We call upon IIM Bangalore to desist from its harassment of Dr Malghan and recognise his valuable contributions towards academic integrity,” they write.