The academic Freedom Index, India now “completely restricted” from the mid -1940s, is its lowest score. , Photo: Still from the film Two platforms.
Robert Francis Prevost became the first Pope from the United States on Thursday (May 8, 2025), lifting the Pope name Leo XIV after the world’s cardinals and selected as the 267th Pope of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics. It was following the death of Pope Francis on 21 April. After decades of the conservative leadership of the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope Benedict XVI, the first Latin American leader of the Church, was concluded in the sinner of Pope Francis, in principle, sought to promote marginalization and care on inclusive purity in principle.
Against this background, I watched the film The to Pops (2019) On the oat. Taking behind the Watican walls, the film Pope Benedict starts again in the last days of the XVI, where conservative Pope Benedict XVI and Liberal Future Pope Francis should find common land to create a new way for the Catholic Church. Inspired by true events, the film shows a fictional dialogue between two pops. Although their views are different, there is place for an open dialogue.
After the Vatican leak, the scam killed the Catholic Church in controversy, George Mario Bergoglio (later known as Pope Francis) presented his resignation as a archbishop. Bergoglio, who was also in line to become the Pope, got the second largest vote after the Pope Benedict. Given the resignation of Bergoglio as a threat to the church, Pope Benedict invited him to the palace of Castail Gandolfo. In the palace, two platforms interact about homosexuality, divorce dialogues, and more. “You have been one of my harsh critics, have a lot of competition for that title”, Pope Benedict says to Bergoglio, because their views are never align.
Pope Benedict asked Bergoglio openly about giving rites to those who are out of dialogue, for divorce. Bergoglyo says, “Oh, I believe that giving communian is not a reward for virtue, it is food to stay hungry”. Pope Benedict then questions him, whether his personal beliefs matters more than the Church taught for hundreds of years. For this, Bergoglio cited the scriptures, “I came to all sinners”. He is back and forth on mercy’s idea. The last word in Bergoglio is: “Daya is dynamite that blows the walls.” Instead of committing a crime, Pope Benedict says, “You have an answer to everything … you are very clever”.
In many scenes like these, the film showed these two religious leaders opposing the ideas navigating each other, even though they originally disagreed from each other. They were listening, challenging, reflecting, and even becoming friends as a result of dialogue, apparently.
Dialogue in Indian education
Dialogue has now become a rareness in universities and academics as well. Universities are considered places that promote critical thinking, where ideas should be hit and grow, where students and teachers question and disagree, but still talk and learn.
Away from this ideal picture, there has been a lot of talk about the loss of educational freedom in India. In the last 10 years, India has declined to the academic freedom index rank, according to the “Free to Think 2024” annual report published by the Scholars at the Risk (SAR) academic Freedom Monitoring Project. According to the Educational Freedom Index, India now rank as “completely restricted”, its lowest score from the mid -1940s.
On May 2, 2025, the Supreme Court has given Dalit Ph.D. Scholar and left student leader Ramjas KS was restored in the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), while allegedly reduced his two -year suspension to indulge in activities that were “not in the interest of the nation”. In a notice sent to Sri Ramdas on 7 March, Tis mentioned his role in the screening of the documentary ‘Ram’s name’ on 26 January, which was a “mark of dishonesty and protest” against the Ram temple statue Abhishek in Ayodhya.
In another example, Vikrant Singh, a Ph.D. The student who received an end letter from IIT Guwahati was told by the Gauhati High Court that the institute had handled the case of Shri Singh unjustly. The institute alleged that Mr. Singh was removing controversies and troubles in IIT Guwahati, since he joined. The court said that Mr. Singh was not given a proper hearing, and the institute did not share the documents of the allegations with him; Therefore, the principles of natural justice were ignored.
The courts that restore students like Shri Ramdas and Shri Singh are welcome. However, it would be ideal if universities set precedence by creating places where students can have a communication with administration, faculty, and no ranker.
Published – May 15, 2025 06:57 pm IST
