The Centre has accepted the resignation of a demographic institute’s director whom it had earlier suspended over alleged administrative irregularities amid allegations that he was being made a “scapegoat” for a health survey’s findings that challenged the government’s claims on open defecation.

While accepting the resignation of K.S. James, director of the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) that is involved in nationwide health surveys, the government revoked his July 28 suspension, the Union health ministry said.

Days after the suspension, a letter signed by more than 800 academics, researchers, and scholars had asked the health ministry to reinstate James, saying the suspension appeared related to survey findings contrary to some of the Centre’s narratives.

The health ministry —which has administrative control over the IIPS — had suspended James after a fact-finding committee found substance in 11 of 35 complaints of irregularities relating to appointments, faculty recruitment and compliance with the reservation roster.

On October 11, the ministry’s statistics division issued an order saying the “competent authority on subsequent review is of the opinion that in view of material changes in the circumstances, the suspension of professor K.S. James may not be extended further”.

“Now, therefore, the president... revokes the suspension of Prof. James, Director and Senior Professor, IIPS, Mumbai, with immediate effect,” the order read.

Another order issued by the division the same day read: “Consequent upon tendering of the resignation dated August 7 by Professor James owing to personal grounds, the president is pleased to accept the resignation of Prof. K S James from the post of Director and Senior Professor, International Institute for Population Sciences with effect from the date of clearance of his government duties or with immediate effect, whichever is later.”

The National Family Health Survey (NFHS) for 2019-21, conducted by the James-led IIPS, had found that 83 per cent of the over 636,000 households sampled across the country had access to toilets, implying the rest practised open defecation.

However, at a public event on October 2, 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi
had told a gathering that the number of people practising open defecation had fallen from 600 million to “negligible” thanks to the Swachh Bharat Mission.

Immediately after James’s suspension, the India Academic Freedom Network (IAFN) had sought withdrawal of the order, saying James was a demographer and scholar of the highest global repute with “impeccable personal and academic integrity”.

“We believe that in suspending Professor James,... the government is trying to make him a scapegoat for findings from the NFHS which question the official narrative on some issues and for which he is neither directly or indirectly responsible,” the IAFN said in a letter to health minister Mansukh Mandaviya that carried over 800 signatures.

“This act places India in the ranks of those countries which do not allow independent surveys to raise questions on government narratives” and would create “serious suspicion, both nationally and internationally”, on the reliability of the next round of the NFHS, the IAFN said.

“Independent research and data gathering is crucial to good policymaking. We do not want India’s performance to be questioned internationally because the data it puts out is treated as questionable,” the letter said.

The signatories included faculty and research scholars from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Delhi University, JNU and IIM Bangalore, and public health experts from the Jan Swasthya Abhiyan and the Forum for Medical Ethics.