Bill ‘attacks legacy’: ISI Calcutta's research scholars, teachers ramp up protest
Telegraph | 29 November 2025
Teachers, past and present, students, research scholars and staff of ISI, Calcutta, formed a human chain outside the campus on BT Road on Friday, demanding the scrapping of the draft ISI Bill, 2025. They said that the Union government’s proposal is aimed at undermining the institution’s autonomy.
Many protesters carried banners with the slogan “Withdraw the ISI draft bill” and held photos of Prashanta Chandra Mahalanobis, the founder of the institute.
“The draft bill hurts the very legacy of Prashanta Chandra Mahalanobis, instilling the spirit of autonomy,” said ISI professor Arijit Bishnu.
The protest, which began with a small assembly on campus on November 12, expanded to the human chain and a rally on Friday.
“There is a need to scale up the protest because there is still no word on the withdrawal of the bill. We made the human chain and followed it with a rally to make ourselves heard. We cannot let them repeal the Act of 1959, introduced in Parliament by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru,” said Partha Majumder, National Science Chair of the government of India and a former ISI professor.
The demonstrators are concerned that the draft bill proposes to alter the composition of the institute’s council and academic council, placing overarching authority in the hands of the Centre and its nominees, who would form a board of governors.
“What is of grave concern is that the Union government did not bother to hold any discussion with the real stakeholders. There was no review by any expert committee. Just by their whims, they want to break the democratic structure. This cannot be accepted,” Majumder said.
“The situation is so scary that academics like us, normally occupied with research and other commitments, had to take to the streets,” he added. Majumder had also founded the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics in Kalyani in 2010.
Nearly 1,000 people participated in the human chain, with several residents of the area joining in.
The Union government had sought public opinion on the draft bill until November 3 and is expected to table it in Parliament during the upcoming session.
A research scholar said the draft bill proposes to repeal the 1959 ISI Act, which granted the institute the status of Institute of National Importance (INI), and replace it with new legislation.
The bill would vest sweeping powers in the board of governors, overseeing policy, administration, finance, and academic matters, protesters said.
Under the new structure, the academic council would lose its final authority, only making recommendations to the board, the protesters said.
ISI professor Debrup Chakraborty said they feared the bill could be pushed through in the Parliament session scheduled to start next week. “The list of business does not include the ISI bill, but we don’t trust the Union government. They could introduce it any time. So we are scaling up the protest,” he said.
Late on Friday, the Union ministry of statistics and programme implementation uploaded a new draft ISI Bill, 2025, and sought public feedback on it by December 15.
Trinamool MP from Dum Dum, Saugata Roy, addressed the protest gathering after the human chain, lending support to the demonstrators.