Democracy vs control : The tug of war in PU

THE long-drawn agitation in PU, which attracted a huge response from political parties, kisan and mazdoor unions, students' organisations and civil society, had begun as a students’ protest against an affidavit to be submitted by the students to the effect that they would not take part in any protest in the university premises.

In the meantime, the Central government issued a notification on October 28 overhauling the 79-year-old democratically elected representative governing structure of Panjab University (PU), known as the Senate (supreme legislative) and the Syndicate (executive body). However, the long-awaited but complicated issue of Senate reforms, which goes back to the tenure of Vice-Chancellor Prof MM Puri, remains inconclusive.

Since then, though the reform issue had become dormant for a long time, it picked up momentum during the turbulent tenure of vice-chancellorship of Professor Arun K Grover, who preferred to conduct the proceedings of the Senate independently of its factional politics.

It was also during his tenure that a National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) committee (March 2015) underlined the need for restructuring the PU Senate and the procedure for the appointment of deans.

At the same time, on October 8, 2015, the then president of the Panjab University Teachers Association (PUTA), who was also a nominated member of the Senate, submitted a proposal for governance reforms. They were put up at the Syndicate meeting, leading to the formation of a 16-member Governance Reforms Committee (GRC) on November 29, 2015.

Chaired by a former chief justice of a high court, it recommended the constitution of three sub-committees to look into reforms, comprising amendments in the PU Act, changes in PU statutes/regulations and improvements by delegation within the regulations. Their reports were put before the GRC and several special invitees and forwarded to the Syndicate and Senate members. They were also submitted to the high court in the PIL awaiting consideration.

The Senate reforms stem from the modification needed in the PU Act (1947) that was carved out of the dated Indian Universities Act (1904), which was designed to fulfill the governing requirements of the then evolving publicly funded university that had come into existence in 1882.

The graduate constituency, the clause of allotment of faculties in four disciplines to a given Senator and the concept of added-members to each faculty — this was the required arrangement at that time in the absence of provision of the university's own inhouse faculty .

According to such an arrangement, any two Senate members in a given faculty could join hands to bring in an 'added-member' from among the affiliated college lecturers and other professionals in their respective faculties.

It was after the Partition, when the university was relocated in east Punjab, that professors and heads of university department were allowed to be included in the faculties of their respective domains as 'ex-officio members under the PU Act (1947). The 'faculty constituency' in the Senate comprised six elected Senators.

Despite the Senate initiatives that began in 2015, including an affidavit filed by the Vice-Chancellor on governance reforms and financial concerns of PU in a PIL initiated suo moto by the Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court in October 2016, two terms of the PU Senate (2016-20 and 2020-24) have been completed without any action to that effect.

It is pertinent to recall the independent initiative of the Chancellor, PU, who deputed his emissary to Chandigarh to consult with all stakeholders before the initiation of the elections to the Senate of 2020-24. The term of the last Senate ended on October 31, 2024 without the approval of the mandatory election schedule for the next Senate of 2025-28, probably given the sub-judice status of the election process for the previous Senate.

Moreover, since the exit of the last VC, no Senate meeting has been held. It has led to a legitimate democratic governance vacuum in PU’s administrative structure, giving rise to various kinds of opinion about dismantling PU's heritage governance bodies and replacing them with a nominated, centralised structure, as existing in other state and Central universities.

It is also being discussed across varied stakeholders that PU evolved in unique circumstances during the colonial regime as the only Punjab heritage university which was established with publicly collected funds after the coming up of the three foundational universities of Calcutta, Madras and Bombay. And it was for this reason that its uniqueness needed to be preserved. The Senate and Syndicate constitute the epicentre of PU’s unique academic heritage status.

It was this status of PU that was highlighted by voices opposing the Gazette notification issued on October 28. It sent shockwaves through PU stakeholder circles, reverberating from Chandigarh to villages in the interior of Punjab.

What gave further spur to the spell of opposition was the delicate time of the announcement of the notification (November 1, 2025). It coincided with the re-organisation of the state (November 1, 1966) as also the ongoing high-profile electioneering process in the Tarn Taran Assembly seat, which is being projected as an emerging trend, setting the tone for the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections and 2029 parliamentary elections.

Yet another factor that gave impetus to the opposition against the notification was the geographical placement of PU in Chandigarh, the capital of two states with its union territory status. Thus, any issue related with the governance of the university gets immediately linked with the larger political dynamics of the state, so much so that any attempt to dilute the university's democratic character is seen as weakening Punjab's claim over Chandigarh.

What led to the exacerbation of the problem was the Centre first putting on hold the notification, with a rider about its implementation, and later withdrawing it on November 7, 2025. Though student organisations have welcomed the decision, they refuse to wind up their struggle until the schedule for the Senate election is announced. It is alleged that the election has already been deliberately delayed for a year by the Centre.

All said and done, the moot question remains unanswered amid the varied viewpoints on PU's governance reforms. Those arguing for status quo, citing the PU's heritage character, fail to justify the outmoded stance of the pristine PU calendar in the much-changed scenario of contemporary times, in comparison to those prevailing at the time the Indian Universities Act (1904) and PU Act (1947) came up. And those advocating major modifications to the PU Act 1947 have failed to justify the dilution of the democratic character of the Senate and Syndicate.

PU should be saved from both extremes: one, the factionalism emanating from the old set-up to the disadvantage of the academic domain; and two, the bureaucratic and hegemonistic control of the remoulded governance body, as unfolded in the notification that was later rescinded.