The Bihar government’s education department seeking clarification on the recommendation of a sitting minister for a university teaching post is not a procedural footnote—it is a serious indictment of how political power has seeped into academic institutions. The case exposes structural rot in governance, where merit-based systems are weakened to accommodate political influence, while ordinary aspirants are left to navigate an unforgiving and opaque bureaucracy.
According to the report, the Bihar State University Service Commission (BSUSC) recommended rural works minister Ashok Chaudhary for appointment as an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Patliputra University. The education department, however, returned the case to the commission seeking its “opinion and review.” The stated reason was clear and troubling: the minister’s PhD degree, awarded by Magadh University, had not yet been scrutinised in accordance with University Grants Commission (UGC) regulations of 2009.
In any functional academic system, this alone would have settled the matter. Verification of academic qualifications is not optional—it is foundational. UGC regulations exist to ensure minimum standards in higher education, particularly at a time when degree credibility across universities varies sharply. The fact that a PhD degree could be recommended for appointment before such scrutiny raises uncomfortable questions about institutional seriousness and integrity.
Equally revealing is the contradiction surrounding the minister’s candidature. While recommended under the Scheduled Caste category, his name was missing from the university’s official list of 18 selected candidates released earlier. His status was marked as “kept waiting.” This duality—recommended by the commission but withheld by the university—reflects an administration struggling to reconcile political pressure with regulatory compliance.
The broader recruitment context makes the episode even more disturbing. Of 280 vacancies in Political Science, only 274 candidates were recommended. Several applicants were excluded or kept waiting due to technical issues such as non-availability or pending scrutiny of experience certificates. These candidates are not politically powerful individuals; they are career academics whose livelihoods depend on strict adherence to rules. For them, procedural scrutiny is absolute. For a minister, it appears negotiable.
This selective flexibility is at the core of Bihar’s governance failure. The education minister’s defence—that the department merely returned the file and does not make appointments—illustrates how accountability is routinely diffused. Responsibility is passed between departments and commissions, creating a system where no authority is ultimately answerable. In such an environment, institutional capture becomes easy and resistance becomes risky.
Even more concerning is the admission by a senior higher education official that he was unaware of the matter. In a state already grappling with faculty shortages, declining university standards, and mass student migration, such administrative detachment is not benign—it is damaging. It signals either dysfunction at the top or deliberate avoidance of politically inconvenient issues.
The controversy has understandably acquired political overtones, with opposition voices questioning how a recommendation could be made on the basis of a degree that the department itself finds unverified. This is not mere political point-scoring. It is a legitimate challenge to the credibility of public recruitment mechanisms. When academic posts appear accessible through influence rather than scholarship, the message sent to Bihar’s youth is corrosive.
Bihar’s economic stagnation cannot be separated from the collapse of its education system. With limited industrial growth and private-sector employment, higher education remains the most critical pathway for social mobility. When universities are weakened by politicised appointments and compromised standards, the poor are denied their most reliable ladder out of poverty.
This erosion also damages the credibility of reservation policies. When reserved-category appointments are seen as instruments of elite accommodation rather than social justice, they invite cynicism and resentment. Such misuse undermines the very constitutional purpose of affirmative action, while shielding the political class from scrutiny.
What emerges from this episode is not an aberration, but a pattern. Bihar’s governance model has long tolerated ambiguity, delay, and selective enforcement. These traits create fertile ground for corruption, while insulating those in power from consequences. Over time, institutions lose their moral authority, and citizens lose faith in fairness.
Ignorance among the masses does not persist accidentally. A compromised education system ensures limited questioning, weak civic engagement, and continued dependence on political patronage. In this sense, the deterioration of Bihar’s universities is not merely administrative failure—it is a political outcome that benefits entrenched elites.
The issue, ultimately, is not the fate of one appointment. It is whether Bihar’s institutions are strong enough to withstand political pressure, or whether they will continue to bend quietly. Until academic recruitment is made fully transparent, independently audited, and insulated from political office-holders, Bihar’s education system will remain a casualty of governance decay.
For a state aspiring to break free from chronic underdevelopment, this is not just an education crisis—it is a warning. Without restoring institutional integrity, Bihar will continue to produce degrees without dignity, governance without accountability, and growth without justice.
