Chhattisgarh minister laps up fake honour

Chhattisgarh’s Agriculture and Labour Minister Chandrashekhar Sahu is on cloud nine. On Monday, he is flying all the way from Raipur to Bangalore to receive an honorary doctorate.

Little does he know that the credentials of the “university,” which is giving him doctorate, are under a cloud of suspicion.

The Public Relations Department of the Government of Chhattisgarh has announced on its website that New International Christian University will confer “Doctor of Social Works” on Sahu.

The press note reads: “Chandrashekhar Sahu has been chosen for his serious and multi-dimensional works for the prosperity and development of farmers of Chhattisgarh, his foresightedness, leadership qualities and his long services in the social and public sphere.”

However, the Hampinagar-based university in the City which will give the honour has made it clear that the doctorate will not be given by it but by the Academy of Universal Global Peace (AUGP).

Dr R K Samuel, director of the “university,” clarifies: “The New International Christian University is only facilitating the felicitation while the honorary doctorate will be given by the AUGP.”

From here, it gets only murkier. Samuel admits that neither his university nor the AUGP is affiliated to the University Grants Commission (UGC) or any Indian academic institution.

The university claims affiliations with the United Nations Global Compact, United Nations Academic Impact, European Commission, Power Ministries International and World Peace Organisation. Even these claims were not found to be true.

The university director insists his institution’s affiliation with the AUGP, headquartered in America.

Asked where in the US the headquarters is, he says it has now been shifted to Chennai. “The International Chairman of the AUGP, Dr Madhu Krishan, travels globally. Earlier he had spent some years in America but now he is settled in Chennai, so the headquarters is in Chennai now,” says Dr Samuel.

But Champu Bhaiya, as Chandrashekhar Sahu is popularly known in Chhattisgarh, is elated and says he has already sent a team of four IAS and IPS officers from the state who have camped in Bangalore to verify the authenticity of the university. He says he had earlier roped in the government machinery to substantiate the claims made by the organisation, who gave a clean chit to it.

“Our investigation showed that International Christian University is a very old institution. Earlier it was restricted only to missionary activities but now they are devoted to social work. When the university sought my consent for the honorary degree, I verified its background and after I was satisfied, I gave my nod,” says Sahu.

He was reminded that the organisation which has chosen him for the honorary doctorate is not International Christian University, a private university based out of Japan, but ‘The New International Christian University’. Yet Sahu’s faith is unshakable. Curtly he replies: “Both are same.”

He might have missed the point that it is not the International Christian University or the New International Christian University but the Academy of Universal Global Peace (AUGP) that is giving him the doctorate.