A Year After Controversy Over Flawed Caste Data, Scholar Allegedly 'Forced Out' Of Ashoka University

Ashoka University has reportedly 'forced out' a scholar over a year after controversy on caste data co-produced by the varsity’s Trivedi Centre for Political Data.

In an open letter, the scientific board of the Trivedi Centre for Political Data, housed within Ashoka University and set up by Professor Gilles Verniers, has claimed that Verniers was "forced to leave".

This comes a year after year ago new caste data in the book by political scientist Nalin Mehta found significant flaws in Trivedi Centre's data.

According to Mehta, the Centre's caste data was used by Verniers and Christophe Jaffrelot, a Paris-based author and chair of the TCPD's scientific board, to claim that the 2019 poll marked ‘the revenge of the upper-caste elite,’ aligned with the ‘BJP against the Dalits’ and OBCs’ assertiveness’.

They used a database on the social backgrounds of elected legislators co-produced by Ashoka University’s Trivedi Centre for Political Data (TCPD).

In the open letter, the scientific board of the Centre said, "TCPD’s vibrant and important agenda, under the leadership of founding Director Professor Gilles Verniers, is what attracted each of us to serve on its Scientific Board, and contribute to its intellectual mission".

"We now write to state our regret that the Centre’s founder and director was forced to leave, and that the university did not inform the Centre’s scientific board about decisions that affect not only the leadership of the Centre but also its future as an institution," it said.

The board said that it was not consulted before "substantial changes were made governing how the Centre is run and situated within its home institution, in breach of academic norms".

"Under such circumstances, we, signatories of this letter, are dissolving TCPD’s Scientific board. We commit to supporting Gilles Verniers’ and his partners’ efforts to maintain the future and the integrity of the data and of the work associated with it," the letter reads.