Too much politics: Singapore’s George Yeo walks out of India’s Nalanda University as chancellor

India’s Nalanda University, an ancient seat of learning that the government has been trying to revive, saw more controversy on Friday after its prominent Singaporean chancellor suddenly quit citing political interference in a recent management overhaul.

The resignation of George Yeo, a former Singapore foreign minister, came days after Indian president Pranab Mukherjee endorsed a clearing out of the high-profile university’s governing body.

Among the big-name casualties of the board revamp announced Tuesday were Indian Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, a well-known critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the university’s former chancellor, Britain-based academic Meghnad Desai, another government critic, and opposition lawmaker Sugata Bose.

“The sudden dissolution of the old Nalanda board is bound up with Indian domestic politics which I do not wish to be embroiled in,” Yeo said in a Facebook post on Friday.

“Nalanda is an idea whose time has come. It is bigger than and will outlast any of us,” Yeo wrote.

In an earlier statement, the 62-year-old Yeo said the overhaul of the university’s governing body “came as a complete surprise to me and to most members of the old governing board”.