The Historic Indian Statistical Institute Faces Bulldozer!?

[Sukla Sen]

[Hi Friends,

Please look up the detailed appeal appended below.

And sign the petition at <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Xi6YU3Fgo1Q1GvZDN2Hxb-B405xkMbyFxbjmGmcBHQw/>.

In this context, it's worth noting also the following:

Trump from under the banner of "Make America Great Again!" [MAGA] and Modi with the promise of making India "Vishwaguru", both are out wrecking their respective countries.

The premier academic institutions, as it looks, are their most favoured targets.

In the case of Modi, with his academic degree in "Entire Political Science", this vicious animus has in all probability a strong personal dimension too apart from the routine righ-wingers' hatred for (fact-based) knowledge in general and a free inquisitive mind that it keeps breeding in particular.

Despite having some formal authentic) degrees, Trump's motivation may also be broadly similar.

The declaration of the rather miniscule institution of Indian Statistical Institute as an "Institute of National Importance" was one of the ground-breaking initiatives of Independent India in its very infancy under a remarkably visionary leader.

Not only its founding leader, Prasanta Chandra Mahalanabis, but also another subsequent Director, C R Rao, are acknowledged as two most eminent statisticians globally. The institute itself is a sort of role model.

With the scrapping and replacement of the original Act, doors will be open for those who claim that India developed internet, genetic science and what not in the Mahabharata-Ramayana era to head and steer the prime institution and ruin it thoroughly. Perhaps producing fake numbers as a side-benefit.

It's against this background one must take note of the following brilliant and telling observation by one of the foremost public intellectuals from the subcontinent:

...One Hindutva activist wistfully writes that had Nehru handed over charge of India after Independence to the deserving sanghis, India would have “attained ram rajya by now, with a hundred crore people chanting ‘hanuman chalisa’ a dozen times a day".

...(I)magine for a moment that Narendra Modi, not Jawaharlal Nehru, had been India’s prime minister in 1947. What might have today’s India looked like in scientific terms?

Instead of being noted for its exceptional space programme (Mangalyaan!) and brilliant string theorists (Ashoke Sen!), India would have become a garbage dump for every kind of crackpot science. Medical research would have concentrated on medicines made from cow urine and cow dung, the celibacy of peacocks would be under intense scrutiny, astrology would be taught in place of astronomy, and instead of teaching actual mathematics there would be Vedic mathematics. As in Pakistan, Darwinian evolution would be considered heretical and destructive of religious faith.

(Ref.: <https://theprint.in/opinion/india-would-have-been-a-dump-for-crackpot-science-had-modi-been-its-first-prime-minister/51521/>.)]

Dear Friends,

You may already be aware that the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) has released the draft Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) Bill 2025, which is currently open for public comments. We are writing to express our deep concern about this proposed legislation, which, if enacted, will fundamentally alter the structure, autonomy, and character of the Indian Statistical Institute. Among many other issues as highlighted in the webpage at https://sites.google.com/view/isibill2025, the major issues hurting ISI and its autonomy are: 

ISI derives its autonomy from being a Society based institute registered under the West Bengal Society Registration Act that is given due cognizance by the ISI Act 1959 of Indian Parliament. The draft bill repeals the ISI Act 1959 to replace it with the new Act by proposing to replace the Society structure with a statutory body corporate. 

As mandated by the rules of the Society, ISI is run by a representative 33 member Council consisting of different stakeholders – elected and nominated members, internal and external members, scientists and bureaucrats, society representatives, worker representatives, etc. This Council is going to be replaced by a BoG of 11 members solely nominated by the government. This hurts at the root of the autonomy of ISI. 

The Academic Council (AC) consisted of all Professors and enjoyed full autonomy on academic matters.This is also going to be replaced by a new AC chosen by the BoG thus increasing government control on the AC. 

ISI had no tuition fees for longstanding courses to encourage students to take up basic sciences. The current Bill nullifies that and takes the power of deciding tuition fees from the AC and gives it to the BoG.

We believe that pushing this Bill through in haste would be a grave mistake and would cause irreparable harm to an institution that has served India with distinction for over nine decades.

We, the faculty, staff, and students of ISI, are collectively opposing this Bill and appealing to all concerned citizens to join us in protecting ISI’s autonomy, academic freedom, and legacy.

We know you, as a public intellectual, have consistently spoken out against social and institutional injustices and have helped shape public thought through your work. We view the ISI Bill as a serious threat to the pursuit of knowledge and intellectual independence, with long-lasting consequences for Indian academia and society.

We humbly request you to:

Publicly voice your opposition to the ISI Bill 2025 and its implications.

Urge the Government and MoSPI to withdraw or substantially revise the Bill after genuine consultation with ISI stakeholders.

Support public awareness efforts to safeguard the autonomy and legacy of ISI as a centre of free and fundamental scientific inquiry.

Engage in public or media discussions to highlight the broader implications of this Bill for higher education and institutional autonomy in India.

We would be glad to provide any background material, documents, or analysis that may help you in this regard. A more detailed version of this letter is attached as a pdf file with this email.

Best regards,

Debrup Chakraborty (Associate Professor, Cryptology and Security Research Unit, ISI)

Arijit Bishnu (Professor, Advanced Computation and Micro Electronics Unit, ISI)

Kuntal Ghosh (Associate Professor, Machine Intelligence Unit, ISI)

Paramita Das (Assistant Professor, Theoretical Statistics and Mathematics Unit, ISI)

Arijit Chakraborty ( Professor, Theoretical Statistics and Mathematics Unit, ISI)

Peace Is Doable