She has described this as an attempt to tamper with the non-political sanctity of a 30-year-old institution. This comes on the day the governing board of the IIAS chose a 40-member selection panel packed with little-known scholars from Allahabad University, Rajasthan University, Gorakhpur University, Lucknow University and Benaras Hindu University, whose politics is inclined towards the right.

The governing board, chaired by former Allahabad University Vice-Chancellor G C Pande - and including Vice-Chairman and fellow of the Chennai-based swadeshi centre, Centre for Policy Studies, M D Srinivas, Joshi's friend and former education secretary Kireet Joshi - also declared that minutes of the meeting would not be maintained and those in the governing bodywho wanted to add members to make it "more balanced" were welcome to do so.

The selection committee is the most instrumental panel in the IIAS as it selects the 30-odd fellows who carry out research in social studies. The committee prior to this included noted liberal scholars Romila Thapar, Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, Andre Beteille, U R Ananthamurthy, Harish Trivedi and Amiya Deb.

Pande has invited Joshi to address the society before it meets at 4.30 pm and there is speculation that the scholars might boycott it. Sobti had earlier written a letter of protest to Pande about his invitation to Joshi to deliver the Radhakrishnan Memorial Lecture in September this year.

In her letter of November 11, 1998, she had written that Pande was damaging IIAS by inviting a politician to deliver such a prestigious lecture. She had suggested the name of President K R Narayanan instead. In his response, Pande described Joshi as a scholar of "international repute". He had also decried the attempt by her to "misinterpret"his invitation to Joshi.