Skip to main content

Call to support IIM-Bangalore professor, censured for seeking action against Uniliver

Dr Deepak Malghan
Counterview Desk
Sections of the Indian Institute of Managements (IIMs) across India have strongly reacted to the decision to censure Dr Deepak Malghan, a faulty at IIM-Bangalore. Prabhir Vishnu Poruthiyil, who is faculty at IIM-Tiruchirapalli, has sought wider solidarity with Dr Malghan, saying, "The administration has censured Deepak for merely suggesting a meaningful action against Hindustan Unilever for their abysmal environmental record" by “disinviting” it for campus placement.
According to Poruthiyil, "Though the ostensible reason for the censure order is his environmental activism, an underlying subtext of this censure is his campaign for social diversity among the faculty of the IIMs. Deepak's research exposed that of the 512 faculty members in all IIMs combined; only two belong to the Scheduled Caste category. He has also been campaigning for the desegregation of the vegetarian and non-vegetarian sections of the canteens in the IIM-B."
Continues Poruthiyil, "Deepak's relentless campaign, which inevitably led to his ostracism from the majority of the IIM faculty network, has been successful to a degree -- IIM-B has recently started a scholarship program for doctoral candidates belonging to underprivileged castes."
Following Poruthiyil plea, the Human Rights and Business Network of India (HRBN-I) has created a petition in support of Dr Malghan, to be sent to the IIM-B board. HRBN-I, which is a civil society network working on issues related to business and human rights in India, has called Dr Malghan a "recognized scholar".
Pointing out Dr Malghan, who is assistant professor at the IIM-B, received a censure order from IIM-B for sending a mail to the Placement Committee, saying they should “disinvite” Unilever during campus placement. Hindustan Unilever, adds HRBN-I, has been "in the midst of a controversy related to its decision in 2001 to carelessly dump mercury, a hazardous chemical, when closing down a plant located at Kodaikanal."
HRBN-I adds, "This issue is disheartening because it exposes once again the narrowing of spaces for critical research in Indian academia, and more specifically the usurpation of business education by corporate interests." HRBN-I has asked concerned citizens to endorse the petition and send suggestions for further suggestion by emailing at hrbn.india@gmail.com till Friday, January 11, 2019.

Text of the draft petition:

The Human Rights and Business Network is a coalition of academics, civil society activists, journalists, and indigenous groups created to defend the human rights of precarious communities in India. Due to the nature of its work, the HRBN is acutely aware of the rapidly decreasing spaces to discuss and debate development trajectories premised on the denial of human rights of the weaker and voiceless sections in India.
Given the already bleak context, we are alarmed at the recent actions taken by the administration of the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) to censure Deepak Malghan, an assistant professor in the institute.
The trigger for IIMB’s actions is ostensibly Dr Malghan’s suggestion in an email that students hold Hindustan Unilever to account for the irreversible damages caused by its factory to the ecology of Kodaikanal and the denial of the rights of communities to a healthy life. For its part, IIM-B justifies these actions as a defense of the interests of its “stakeholders”, that presumably includes Hindustan Unilever.
Even a student would know evoking stakeholder interests cannot ignore the weaker entities affected by an organization’s actions. In a stunning display of partisanship, IIMB has chosen to prioritize the interests of its most privileged stakeholders while reprimanding Dr. Malghan for seeking to defend the interests of the communities that, being a public-funded institution, IIM-B has a duty to defend.
It is expected of corporations to curtail voices of individuals and groups who consistently expose corporate hypocrisies. Tactics for suppressing critiques from within the academia may include threatening administrations with withdrawal of funding of professorial chairs, with exiting from recruitment, or with denial of lucrative management development programs; each of some of these methods may have been deployed in this case.
An administration with moral and intellectual spine would have withstood such pressures and reaffirmed the importance of the free exchange of ideas for research and teaching. Instead, IIM-B’s decision to censure Dr Malghan is a shocking display of submission to corporate bullying.
This meekness is a symptom of an affliction by a malaise known to infect business schools in general – the substitution of “higher aims”, in this case academic freedom and defending the weak, with an eagerness to become “hired hands” groveling in the service of corporate greed.
We request the Board of Governors at IIM-B to reverse the decision to censure Dr Malghan, and thereby reiterate the protections of academic freedom at IIMB. If schools at the forefront of education like IIM-B can be bullied into submission, our entire higher education system risks losing its spine to ever stand up to forces inimical to social justice. The reversal will also be a message of reassurance for the academic community in India.
We affirm our support to Dr Malghan in his efforts to secure environmental justice. We thank Dr Malghan for reminding faculty members and academic leaderships across the country that basic principles of an academic life involve courage in speaking truth to power and a commitment to transforming students into critical citizens and empathetic human beings.

Comments

TRENDING

Insider plot to kill Deendayal Upadhyay? What RSS pracharak Balraj Madhok said

By Shamsul Islam*  Balraj Madhok's died on May 2, 2016 ending an era of old guards of Hindutva politics. A senior RSS pracharak till his death was paid handsome tributes by the RSS leaders including PM Modi, himself a senior pracharak, for being a "stalwart leader of Jan Sangh. Balraj Madhok ji's ideological commitment was strong and clarity of thought immense. He was selflessly devoted to the nation and society. I had the good fortune of interacting with Balraj Madhok ji on many occasions". The RSS also issued a formal condolence message signed by the Supremo Mohan Bhagwat on behalf of all swayamsevaks, referring to his contribution of commitment to nation and society. He was a leading RSS pracharak on whom his organization relied for initiating prominent Hindutva projects. But today nobody in the RSS-BJP top hierarchy remembers/talks about Madhok as he was an insider chronicler of the immense degeneration which was spreading as an epidemic in the high echelons of th

Central pollution watchdog sees red in Union ministry labelling waste to energy green

By Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran*  “Destructors”, “incinerators” and “waste-to-energy (WTE) incineration” all mean the same thing – indiscriminate burning of garbage! Having a history of about one and a half centuries, WTE incinerators have seen several reboots over the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. 

First-of-its-kind? 'Eco-friendly, low cost' sewage treatment system installed in Gujarat

Counterview Desk Following the installation of the Unconventional Decentralized Multi-Stage Reactor (UDMSR) for sewage treatment, a note on what is claimed to be the  first-of-its-kind technology said, the treated sewage from this system “can be directly utilized for agricultural purposes”, even as proving to be a “saviour in the times of water crisis.”

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

By Rajiv Shah*   The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual. 

Indo-Bangla border: Farmers facing 'illegal obstacles' in harvesting, transporting yields

  Counterview Desk  In a representation to the chairperson, National Human Rights Commission, human rights defender Kirity Roy, who is secretary, Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM), has said that Border Security Force (BSF) personnel are creating "illegal obstacles" for farmers seeking to harvest their ripened yields and transport them to the market in village Jhaukuthi of Cooch Behar district.

Wasteland, a colonial legacy, being used to 'give away' vast tracts to Ratnagiri refinery

By Fouziya Tehzeeb* William D’Souza, a 55-year old farmer from Kuthethur, Mangalore, was busy mixing cattle feed when we arrived at his doorsteps. Around 25 km from the bustling city of Mangalore, Kuthethur is a lush green village with thick vegetation. On the way to William’s house the idyllic view gets blocked by the flares and smoke arising from the Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL).

'Flawed' argument: Gandhi had minimal role, naval mutinies alone led to Independence

Counterview Desk Reacting to a Counterview  story , "Rewiring history? Bose, not Gandhi, was real Father of Nation: British PM Attlee 'cited'" (January 26, 2016), an avid reader has forwarded  reaction  in the form of a  link , which carries the article "Did Atlee say Gandhi had minimal role in Independence? #FactCheck", published in the site satyagrahis.in. The satyagraha.in article seeks to debunk the view, reported in the Counterview story, taken by retired army officer GD Bakshi in his book, “Bose: An Indian Samurai”, which claims that Gandhiji had a minimal role to play in India's freedom struggle, and that it was Netaji who played the crucial role. We reproduce the satyagraha.in article here. Text: Nowadays it is said by many MK Gandhi critics that Clement Atlee made a statement in which he said Gandhi has ‘minimal’ role in India's independence and gave credit to naval mutinies and with this statement, they concluded the whole freedom struggle.

CAA disregards India's inclusive plural ethos, 'betrays' ideals of freedom struggle: PUCL

Counterview Desk    "Outraged" at the move of the Central government to implement the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA 2019) weeks before the election, the top rights group, People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), has demanded that the law be repealed. 

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Our Representative Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

Sections of BSF, BGB personnel 'directly or indirectly' involved in cross border smuggling

By Kirity Roy*  The Border Security Force (BSF) of India and the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) of Bangladesh met for 54th Director General level meeting at Dhaka, Bangladesh, on 5th to 9th March, 2024 to discuss on minimizing killings at border area, illegal intrusion, trafficking of drugs and other narcotics, smuggling of arms and ammunitions and other crimes at bordering areas. Further, the summit had an agenda to discuss on overall development in 150 yards area at both sides of the border and design an activity plan for the same.