File picture of chief minister Nitish Kumar and former President APJ Abdul Kalam during an inspection of the Nalanda International University site on August 8, 2008

Patna, Sept. 15: Nitish Kumar was keen on former President APJ Abdul Kalam continuing as visitor of the upcoming Nalanda International University, sources close to the chief minister told The Telegraph today, articulating a political position that need not align with the opinion of the elite group of accomplished academicians and experts which is mentoring the institution.

“The Bihar chief minister was keen on Dr Kalam continuing as the visitor of the university and had stressed on persuading him to continue. However, there appears to have been a mishandling by the ministry of external affairs,” said the source.

The source said the chief minister had even spoken to external affairs minister S.M. Krishna and requested him to persuade Kalam to be interim visitor. However, the source said, the external affairs ministry later informed Nitish that the former President was unwilling to take on the job. “Dr Kalam should have been persuaded to accept the post,” stressed the source.

The source said Nitish wanted both Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, who is heading the governing council, and Kalam to have a lifetime association with Nalanda International University. “However, according to the act passed by the Centre on the university, the President of India will be the ex-officio visitor,” the source said. The chief minister and Kalam have not met in the last six months and by the time the crucial decision of the visitor was taken, Nitish fell ill. But, the source said, even if the chief minister had met Kalam and persuaded him to accept the offer, the decision to appoint the former President as visitor rested with the central government.

Emails sent by The Telegraph to Kalam and to his office did not elicit any response till late this evening.

Academic circles pointed out that while Nitish, and his government, could have their views on who would mentor the showpiece project, they could not override the governing council, which is made up of accomplished persons who cannot be dictated to. Besides Sen, the Nalanda governing council has, among others, as members Harvard University professor Sugata Bose, Peking University professor Wang Bangwei, economist Lord Meghnad Desai, Tansen Sen of Baruch College, City University of New York, and former bureaucrat and Rajya Sabha member N.K. Singh.

“It could well be that the mentor group, in this case the governing council, could make mistakes along the way, but the political establishment has to accept them as such. If the government wants luminaries to make up the council, it has to give them independence and autonomy,” said an academician, who spoke under cover of anonymity.

The academician said Nitish could take a leaf out of the book of his Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee, who has given the mentor group for Presidency University full autonomy to pursue the job to turn the institution into a centre of excellence, a status it enjoyed till the late eighties, but which suffered subsequently owing to political interference.

“Mamata has allowed the Presidency mentor group, which includes Amartya Sen and Sugata Bose, a free hand in returning the institution to its days of glory. The Bengal government even dissolved the governing council which had refused to implement some of the recommendations of the mentor group,” said the academician.

Officially, the Bihar chief minister has stayed away from any controversy surrounding the university and refused to comment on the row that has surfaced over the appointment of Gopa Sabharwal as vice-chancellor. The governing council has stressed it had given Sabharwal a free hand in getting the university started.

Nitish, the source said, has asserted that the state government had done everything that should have been done for the university to take final shape. “Now it’s for the Centre to get into the act,” the source said.

The university has been a dream project of Nitish ever since its inception. “The last thing the chief minister wants is the university getting bogged down in controversies even before it has seen light of day,” remarked an official.

Kalam, as President of India, had mooted the setting up of a world class university at Nalanda, site of the great ancient seat of learning, when he addressed the joint session of the Bihar legislature in 2006. After stepping down as President, Kalam accepted Nitish’s request to become the visitor of the nascent university. Kalam visited the site with Nitish and even suggested how the buildings should come up. “Both as President of India and even after demitting office, Dr Kalam had always shown special interest in the development of Bihar. Even as a scientist he used to visit remote areas of the state in an effort to boost agriculture in Bihar. After he left the post of President, he visited the state three times. It is natural for Nitish to want him to continue as a visitor,” said a confidant of the chief minister.

That Kalam is no longer associated with the ambitious project has sparked off a debate in Patna’s intellectual circles. “The association of a person of Dr Kalam’s stature with Nalanda International University should not have been allowed to end on a note of discord. Dr Kalam had a commitment to the state and the university is a massive venture. There should have been a national consensus behind the effort to retain Dr Kalam as the visitor of the university,” said economist Saibal Gupta.