One of the reasons Upendra Kushwaha cited on Monday for resigning as junior human resource development minister was the serial appointments of “people supporting the RSS ideology” at the helm of academic institutions.

Academics agreed but said the minister should have raised the matter earlier.

“The government’s efforts are directed towards implementing the RSS agenda, not the agenda of social justice. The RSS agenda is against social justice. I resigned because I don’t want to support the RSS agenda,” Kushwaha told a news conference.

He said that people with RSS backgrounds alone had been appointed vice-chancellors at the central universities in the past four years. “RSS people are occupying all (senior) positions at academic institutions. They are appointed as VCs and chosen as teachers,” Kushwaha, the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party member, said.

As proof of the government’s indifference to social justice, he also cited the weak fight his ministry put up at Allahabad High Court, which last year directed department-wise, rather than institution-wise, implementation of the teacher job quotas. The government has now challenged the judgment, which threatens to reduce the available quota posts.

Delhi University executive council member Rajesh Jha said that recent appointments in key positions at the university and its colleges did indeed betray a bias for candidates with RSS backgrounds. “Most of the principals appointed in DU colleges in recent years were associated with the National Democratic Teachers’ Front (the RSS teacher wing in the university),” Jha said.

He cited the examples of Manoj Sinha and Rajiv Agrawal, the principals of Ramjas College and Deshbandhu College, respectively.

C.P. Bhambri, professor emeritus at JNU, said that being an RSS follower seemed to have become a pre-requisite for a vice-chancellor’s job. “People without much in the way of academic output or leadership qualities are being appointed vice-chancellors because they are RSS camp followers. They implement the government’s agenda without any questioning.”

Bhambri, however, said Kushwaha should have raised the matter earlier.

To buttress his charges about the government’s agenda, Bhambri cited how the higher education regulator, the University Grants Commission, was instructing the universities to observe a “surgical strike day” and an “armed forces day”.

“Universities are supposed to be autonomous institutions. It’s important for vice-chancellors to assert this when their institutions’ autonomy is affected,” he said. “But these vice-chancellors don’t oppose the government because they are from the RSS.”