Dear
students,
Soon after India 's Independence
Watching
closely the unfolding events at AMU from Delhi
An alumnus
of AMU, Husain, as VC of Jamia Mallia Islamia University, had piloted then nascent
nursery to national eminence. Because of his vision and a natural affinity with
AMU as it was also his alma mater, Nehru and Azad rightly believed he would
restore order in the varsity. They were not wrong.
Zakir Sahab
led AMU as it's VC from 1948 to 1956. Closing charms, sewing up fractures,
applying salve wherever needed, he nursed the once splintering institution back
to health. The university got a speed that only picked up more pace in later
years. In eternal gratitude of one it's greatest sons and a saviour, AMU later
named its engineer college after Zakir Sahab.
Cut to
2020. AMU, along with Muslims of India, face an existential crisis again. With
Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) threatening to turn Indian Muslims into
second-class citizens as it makes religion basis for citizenship, the community
is too distracted to give attention to what is happening at AMU. Since December
15 last year when the VC Dr Tarique Mansoor, in collaboration with the police,
cracked down on students protesting the unconstitutional CAA and police attack
on students of Jamia Mallia, the AMU students have been restive. When the
varsity reopened after nearly one month's of forced closure, the students
demanded the resignation of both the VC and the Registrar. Ideally the VC
should have taken moral responsibility and resigned as he had failed to save
students from police brutalities (he said he never asked the cops to take
disproportionate action). Let us give the VC a benefit of doubt that he wanted
action only against the anti-social elements who had mingled with regular
students and were threats to university properties. Even then, as guardian of
the children, if he thinks students are like his children, he should have
stepped down because he has lost the trust of the student community on the
campus. But he will not quit. He would rather close the university once again
as his latest letter to students suggests than step aside and let a temporary
VC run the show.
Dear
students, you must understand that you are not in Nehru's India
Your
demand, therefore, for resignations of VC and Registrar, though legitimate,
will fall on deaf ears. By continuing to boycott classes and exams, you will be
giving the VC an excuse to shut down the university again. Who will be the
ultimate losers? The VC, teaching and non-teaching staff will continue to get
paid their salaries even if there is no work on the campus. The cops will be
asked to enter the campus again and evacuate the hostels. You will lose your
session and probably one crucial year.
I just
heard a viral audio conversation of a law student of AMU with Political
Science's Professor Arshi Khan. When the student asks Khan what should the
students do, Khan says that honesty feels the students should resume classes,
sit for exams and protest to if they believe they must protest. He adds that
his own children are no longer studying at the university and, if they were
there, he would have advised them too not to harm their career. This seems a
sage suggestion. Protest is a continuing process. For students, the world is a
stage and peaceful protests can happen in various forms. A head of an educational
institution will feel isolated if he is disliked by a majority of the students.
Professor
Khan also gives yeo examples from history. He says, and rightly so, that Sir
Syed would not have succeeded in his mission had he remained perpetually
hostile to the British though he had lost close relatives in the Holocaust of
1857. His mother became so ill and famished due to lack of food and care that
she died soon after the storm had passed.
Prof Khan
cites the Hudaibiya agreement he signed with the pagan Meccans. Despite his
companions giving a dissenting note that it was capitulation and humiliating,
the Prophet went ahead with the agreement because he could forsee its noble
results in future. Self-preservation is a trait of the wise and AMU students must
learn it.
When I was
a student at AMU in the mid-1980s I remember the renowned Urdu scholar late
Qazi Abdus Sattar once saying:"
Hindustani
Musalamaanon ka asli Taj Mahal woh nahin jo Agra Aligarh
mein hai (The real Taj Mahal of Indian Muslims is not the one at Agra , but the one that is at Aligarh Agra
Dear
students, you have made a pledge to preserve and protect this great heritage
that you have inherited. And let me tell you, the world can give you
institutions with better infrastructure. The world cannot give you another AMU.
AMU is intertwined with the fate of Muslims even if many may disagree. If AMU
dies, so will Muslims in India
As an
alumnus, it is my fervent appeal to you to go back to your classes, defeat the
designs of those who want your seminary to be locked up. You will not be
ashamed before the old man of Aligarh
Mohammad
Wajihuddin
(Aligarh
Email: mohammed.wajihuddin71@gmail.com