Legacy Undone

The Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics (GIPE) was once a byword for intellectual rigour. Founded in 1930 by the Servants of India Society (SIS), a body inspired by the liberal nationalism of Gopal Krishna Gokhale, it has produced some of India’s finest minds in economics and public policy. But today, its name is more often in the crime briefs than in academic journals. The rot in one of India’s most storied institutions appears to run deep and regrettably, comes from within.

A probe by the Pune city police into alleged financial misappropriation at GIPE has revealed not merely a lapse in financial prudence, but a systematic and possibly premeditated diversion of funds. The trigger was an FIR by the institute’s officiating Deputy Registrar who alleged that over Rs. 1.42 crore was siphoned off between December 2022 and 2023. This led to the secretary of the SIS being taken in police custody after being accused of fraud, cheating and criminal breach of trust.

The case is remarkable not just for the scale of the alleged misappropriation, but for the brazenness of conduct. In one instance, Rs. 10 lakh was purportedly transferred from GIPE to SIS to pay legal fees for the SIS secretary’s personal case involving forgery and land disputes. In another, the secretary is said to have unilaterally written to GIPE in December 2022 requesting Rs. 1.5 crore to convert SIS-owned land in Nagpur from leasehold to freehold. Within two days, the GIPE board gave its nod in blatant violation of University Grants Commission (UGC) norms which expressly forbids diversion of institutional funds.

The sanctity of GIPE’s autonomy, academic mission and public trust is being eroded by these revelations. For decades, GIPE stood as a rare example of an Indian academic institution untethered from the usual state interference. It was independent, serious and austere - qualities increasingly scarce in India’s higher education landscape.

Now, it is mired in a drama more suited to a corporate boardroom brawl than a temple of learning. Even the appointment of Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, as chancellor turned into a political farce. SIS first dismissed him for failing to arrest GIPE’s ‘downfall’ only to sheepishly retract its decision, citing a misunderstanding. Sanyal hit back, pointing out that SIS, far from supporting the institute, now acts more as a landlord collecting rent than a patron of scholarship.

GIPE’s decline is not the result of academic failure but of governance decay. The UGC’s failure to enforce its own regulations, the absence of effective checks and balances within SIS and the apparent complicity of key functionaries at GIPE have together created a perfect storm of mismanagement.

Gopal Krishna Gokhale believed that public service was a sacred calling. The institute that bears his name was meant to embody those ideals. Instead, it has been reduced to a cautionary tale of how legacy institutions can be hollowed out from within.