Aishna Sharma Vanessa Chishti Binay Kumar Pathak The two primary pragmatic objectives of any higher educational institution (HEI) are teaching and research. For the accomplishment of these tasks, academic freedom – allowing students and teachers the agency to work without arbitrary external constraints – is a necessary condition. In higher education in India, this agency has been progressively shrinking over the past several years owing to the dominance of a neoliberal discourse in higher education policy and political interference. The democratic functioning of universities has been severely impacted with the exclusion of teachers and students from institutional decision-making, formal and informal curbs on the freedom to dissent as well as a culture of debate and intellectual openness. It is here that the role of unions and political associations of teachers and students in preserving this democratic nature of HEIs, publicness of higher education and the academic freedom of teachers and...