Add one more point to the similarities between America under Donald Trump and India under Narendra Modi: The shrinking space for academic freedom.

Delhi University professor Apoorvanand was denied leave to attend a talk at the India-China institute in New York on a day the US Department of Homeland Security threatened to revoke Harvard University’s ability to enrol foreign students.

Apoorvanand, who teaches Hindi at Delhi University, was supposed to deliver a lecture on “The university under a global authoritarian turn.”

His leave was rejected by the vice-chancellor, purportedly because the professor refused to submit the text of his talk to the university.

Apoorvanand, a commentator on socio-political and education, has often been critical of the present dispensation through his columns.

But is that the reason why he was denied leave?

“I won’t speculate. But it may not be an irrational way of looking at it,” Apoorvanand told The Telegraph Online. “One-way voice will remain. Of the RSS and the BJP. There are no seminars other than subjects that are seen as nationalistic or Indianness. I have written about it. Can you imagine mid-career sociologists, anthropologists attending faculty development programmes where RSS people lecture them?”

Apoorvanand explained the chronology of events that led to his leave cancellation.

Comedian Kunal Kamra Thursday posted on X that he had recorded a podcast with Apoorvanand.

“2 days ago I release a podcast with Prof- Apoorvanand about the sorry state of academic freedom in Indian Universities..I wake up this morning and hear that he has been denied leave to go speak at an academic event in America which is the exact censorship we discussed about,” the comedian, who is fighting censorship himself, posted.

The topic of the podcast may be the same, but Apoorvanand’s travails started earlier, on April 1.

“My leave application was cleared at three levels. Then it was lying on the registrar’s table for 30 days. I had a verbal discussion with him where he said my leave application will be sent to the ministry. I asked him if there was a rule of precedence,” Apoorvanand said.

The professor said the registrar told him in Hindi: “There is no rule.This is the first time it is happening in my tenure.”

The University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Pictures by: Sumit Bhattacharya

Apoorvanand was asked to submit the text of his talk, which he refused, saying it goes against academic freedom.

On April 4, he received a rejection letter, typed in Hindi, which cited that the text of the talk wasn’t submitted.

Apoorvanand maintained that he will not submit the text. But there was no further acknowledgement of his letter.

On Thursday, he received another rejection letter asking for the text of his talk again.

“It amounts to censorship,” he said.

He said that professors such as JNU’s Tanuka Sarkar and his other colleagues have expressed dismay, calling the rejection unprecedented.

Apoorvanand was supposed to attend the 20th anniversary celebrations of the India China Institute at The New School in New York from April 23 to May 1.

According to The Indian Express, Delhi University’s decision to seek advice from the ministry was taken in “light of the international context”.

“We don’t usually approach the ministry, but in this case, we thought it would be best to take their advice. We asked him to share a copy of his speech, but he did not,” an official was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

Apoorvanand said he had been a victim earlier too.

“Two months ago I was supposed to be the head of the Hindi department per seniority rule. But it didn’t happen. Someone junior to me was made the head.”

In the past few years, whenever Opposition leaders – like Rahul Gandhi or Mamata Banerjee – or a foreign academic have remarked on India’s contemporary political situation, the saffron brigade has called it a vilification campaign against the country backed by inimical foreign agenda.

About 10,000 kilometres away, a similar playbook seems to be operational in the US, where President Trump is going against Ivy league universities.

The Trump administration has cancelled grants of more than $2 billion to Harvard University. His administration has deported about half a dozen students from Minnesota, Brown and Princeton universities.

The accusation: These universities foster a pro-Hamas, anti-American stance.

The result has been an atmosphere of fear in American universities. Many students as well as professors are deleting their social media profiles.

In Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s India, too, students have been detained for protests and on the suspicion of harbouring extremist ideology and objectives.