Cosmopolitan vs parochial

India’s tug-of-war between its liberal intellectuals and Hindutva leaders holds a lesson for all.

The Indian political scientist and commentator Pratap Bhanu Mehta’s resignation from Ashoka University in India has foregrounded the impediments in building institutions of higher education in the non-Western world. The Mehta controversy also raises questions about the nexus between business tycoons and Hindutva forces in India in building or undermining institutions. India’s most recent academic misstep has lessons for its neighbours and beyond, because India is not a dictatorship and boasts of being the largest democracy. The question before India is whether it can build world-class institutions.