Academic freedom in contemporary India operates within a contested temporal-spatial framework where neoliberal market imperatives and Hindu nationalist agendas converge, constraining intellectual autonomy. This essay examines how competing chronotopes—time-space configurations that structure social relations—manifest in Indian higher education and how these temporal regimes shape academic labor. Drawing on Bakhtin’s theoretical concept, the analysis reveals how the dual pressures of “money-time” (market efficiency) and “service-time” (nationalist loyalty) erode the critical “thought-time” necessary for scholarly independence. Through an examination of legal mechanisms, institutional controversies, and grassroots resistance, this study demonstrates how temporal politics shape the possibilities and limitations of academic freedom in India’s increasingly regulated intellectual landscape.

Theoretical Framework: Chronotopes and Academic Labor

Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope—the “intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships” (Bakhtin 1981, 84)—offers a powerful analytical lens for understanding how universities encode power relations through temporal-spatial arrangements. This framework reveals how institutions regulate knowledge production by privileging certain forms of intellectual labor at the expense of marginalizing others. In Indian academic settings, three competing temporalities emerge as particularly significant: neoliberal “money-time,” nationalist “service-time,” and the increasingly endangered “thought-time.”

The chronotope concept moves beyond understanding academic freedom as merely a legal right, instead examining it as a lived practice embedded within specific temporal-spatial configurations. By analyzing how power operates through time itself, we can identify the mechanisms through which certain knowledge forms are accelerated while others are decelerated, suppressed, or entirely eliminated .

This tension is not unique to India. In Turkey, the post-2016 purges of thousands of academics following the coup attempt reveals a nationalist chronotope that punishes intellectuals as traitors. In Brazil, under Bolsonaro’s presidency, universities faced budget cuts, the criminalization of leftist scholars, and attacks on gender studies, reflecting a neoliberal-authoritarian fusion. These cases illustrate how temporal politics in academia are globally relevant yet locally configured.

Market Chronotopes: The Tyranny of “Money-Time”

Valverde’s analysis of “temporal-juridical structures” (Valverde 2015, 12) illuminates how institutional policies codify market efficiency as the dominant academic temporality. Under neoliberal governance, universities increasingly function according to what Noonan terms “money-time”—a time regime focused on quantifiable research outputs, international rankings, and corporate partnerships (Noonan 2015, 47). This chronotope transforms scholarly labor into a competitive race, where productivity is measured through publication metrics, citation indices, and grant acquisition.

India’s National Education Policy 2020 institutionalizes this market logic by emphasizing “multidisciplinary” and “skill-based” education, positioning universities primarily as engines of employability rather than spaces for critical inquiry. The pervasive “publish or perish” imperative systematically erodes “thought-time”—the slow, reflective labor essential for substantive scholarship—particularly affecting disciplines like law and humanities, where research processes fundamentally conflict with accelerated market demands (Chaudhuri 2020).

Nationalist Chronotopes: The Discipline of “Service-Time”

Concurrent with market pressures, Hindu nationalist ideologies impose a “service-time” chronotope that disciplines academic labor through appeals to cultural duty and civilizational loyalty. Thapliyal demonstrates how Hindutva pedagogy redefines education as sewa, or service to the nation, requiring scholars to align their work with state-sanctioned narratives of Indian history and identity (Thapliyal 2018, 136). This temporal regime manifests through policies that systematically erase marginalized histories from curricula, monitor dissenting research, and deploy colonial-era legislation like Section 124A (sedition) to criminalize intellectual critique.

The high-profile 2016 arrest of JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar—charged with “anti-national” speech for questioning state actions in Kashmir—exemplifies how academic dissent becomes recast as temporal transgression, a waste of time that purportedly threatens national unity. Within this chronotope, scholarly time must reinforce rather than question nationalist narratives, creating conditions where critical inquiry itself becomes criminalized as anti-national activity.

Legal Mechanisms and Institutional Autonomy

The legal framework governing academic freedom in India remains notably underdeveloped, with no explicit constitutional protection for scholarly independence. Instead, academic freedom emerges as a derivative right constructed from Article 19 protections of speech and expression, and Article 21 guarantees of personal liberty. This fragmented legal foundation creates vulnerabilities that both market and nationalist forces readily exploit.

Recent legal challenges affecting minority educational institutions like Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) illustrate how juridical temporalities constrain academic freedom through prolonged uncertainty. The November 2024 Supreme Court judgment overruling the 1968 Azeez Basha decision represents a significant jurisprudential shift potentially strengthening minority educational rights. However, the Court’s observations on “waiver” of fundamental rights introduces new temporal constraints on academic institutions (Virtuosity Legal 2024). These legal mechanisms impose bureaucratic temporality that consumes resources otherwise directed toward intellectual pursuits while reinforcing dominant market and nationalist chronotopes.

Paradoxes and Resistance: Reclaiming “Thought-Time”

Resistance to hegemonic chronotopes emerges through deliberate temporal subversion. Adivasi movements such as Pathalgari, which assert tribal autonomy through symbolic territorial markers, exemplify how marginalized communities reject state-imposed temporalities. Similarly, academics who deliberately slow publication cycles or collaborate with grassroots organizations create alternative “time-spaces” for dissident knowledge production (Chatterjee and Maira 2014, 65; Dutta 2019, 87).

Within academic institutions, student-led initiatives like Virtuosity Legal demonstrates how “wasting time” on independent knowledge production becomes a powerful form of resistance. These initiatives are crucial in contesting the dominant temporal logic of academia, which prioritizes market-driven efficiency over substantive intellectual work. Established by law students at AMU, Virtuosity Legal operates deliberately outside institutional metrics of academic success. Their mission statement articulates a commitment “to create a repository of authentic, research-driven content that adds real value to the study and practice of law” where “substance takes precedence over sensationalism” (Lawctopus 2025). This positions their work as a conscious rejection of market-driven demands for rapid, sensationalist content production, highlighting the significance of resisting neoliberal and nationalist pressures that constrain intellectual freedom.

Conclusion: Toward Temporal Autonomy

Academic freedom in India is increasingly a contest over time—who controls it and how it is measured, and whose intellectual labor is deemed worthy of investment. The stakes extend beyond academia: the erosion of thought-time impacts the production of critical knowledge that shapes public discourse, policymaking, and democratic engagement. If scholarship is dictated by corporate interests or nationalist mandates, the ability to challenge power structures and advocate for marginalized voices is significantly weakened.

The challenge ahead is not only legal but also institutional and epistemic: universities must reconfigure research evaluation beyond market metrics, scholars must resist the imperative of accelerated productivity, and transnational networks must support those at risk. As Virtuosity Legal and grassroots movements illustrate, reclaiming thought-time is both an intellectual and political act.

Defending academic freedom necessitates dismantling hegemonic chronotopes through legal advocacy, transnational solidarity, and institutional experimentation. Explicit constitutional recognition of academic freedom, alongside reforms to sedition laws, could reduce the impact of state repression. Meanwhile, alliances with social movements—such as Dalit and Adivasi struggles—provide models of alternative temporalities that prioritize intellectual autonomy over market or nationalist imperatives.

References

Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1981. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Edited by Michael Holquist. Translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Chatterjee, Piya, and Sunaina Maira, eds. 2014. The Imperial University: Academic Repression and Scholarly Dissent. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Dutta, Ani. 2019. “Dissenting Differently: Solidarity and Resistance Beyond the University.” Studies in Social Justice 13 (1): 78–92.

Lawctopus. 2025. “Call for Blogs by Virtuosity Legal: Submit by April 5!” Lawctopus, March 11. https://www.lawctopus.com/call-for-blogs-virtuosity-legal/amp/.

Virtuosity Legal. 2024. “To waive or not to waive: The Supreme Court’s observation on ‘waiver’ of Fundamental Rights in Aligarh Muslim University v. Naresh Agrawal.” https://virtuositylegal.com.