Sir Syed Ahmed Khan-an educationist from the 19^th century who also was also the founder of the Aligarh movement-founded the Mohammeden Anglo Oriental College (MAO College) in 1877. There is a great deal of literature on how Syed Ahmed Khan was working for development of both Hindus and Muslims while serving as a judge, and how he found the Scientific Society with Hindu personalities to translate scientific works into Urdu and Hindi.[3] The same literature also marks a shift in how he later specifically focussed particularly on upliftment of Muslims through education. In this pursuit, he established a school in 1875 which later became the MAO College.

The MAO College eventually transformed into AMU in 1920 through an Act of the Central Legislature, expanding its academic reach and gaining university status.  The birth of independent India in 1947 brought forth a new era, marked by the adoption of the Constitution in 1950. This landmark document enshrined fundamental rights, including provisions for minority institutions, notably Article 30(1), which guaranteed religious and linguistic minorities the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice.  The enactment of the Constitution necessitated aligning existing laws with its principles.  Consequently, the AMU Act underwent amendments in 1951 and 1965. These amendments aimed to reconcile the university’s governance structure with the newly established constitutional provisions, particularly those related to secularism, equality, and the right to education for all citizens.

Changes to AMU Act after Independence

The 1951 Amendment Act was crucial in reshaping AMU’s governance to adhere to the principles of the Constitution, particularly those related to government aid and non-discrimination. The amendment addressed several key aspects, including the composition of the university’s governing body, “the Court,” and provisions for religious instruction. Prior to the amendment, the AMU Act mandated that all members of the Court be Muslims.  This provision was deemed incompatible with the secular and egalitarian ethos of the Indian Constitution, which prohibits discrimination based on religion.  The 1951 amendment removed this requirement, allowing for a more diverse and inclusive composition of the Court, thereby adhering to Article 14, which guarantees equality before the law.

Another significant aspect addressed by the 1951 amendment pertained to religious instruction. The original AMU Act mandated religious instruction for Muslim students, a provision that raised concerns about potential discrimination against students of other faiths. To rectify this and ensure compliance with Article 28(1), which prohibits religious instruction in educational institutions wholly maintained out of State funds, the amendment removed the mandatory religious instruction provision.  This change was crucial in aligning AMU with the principles of the. By removing the requirement for an all-Muslim Court and the mandatory religious instruction provision, the 1951 amendment sought to remove any impediments to AMU receiving government aid while upholding the principles of secularism and equality enshrined in the Constitution.

However, the 1965 Amendment Act, introduced amidst a period of campus unrest, significantly altered the power dynamics within the university, further intensifying debates about its minority character and the autonomy of minority institutions in general. This amendment effectively curtailed the authority of the Court, reducing it to an advisory body. The Executive Council, on the other hand, saw its powers considerably augmented. Additionally, the amendment introduced significant changes to the composition of the Court, shifting from an elected body to a primarily nominated one. These changes, perceived by many as a move towards greater government control over the university, sparked concerns about the erosion of minority institutions’ autonomy and sparked renewed legal challenges. The Supreme Court delivered its judgement on the validity of the amendments in Azeez Basha vs. Union of India.

Azeez Basha v. Union of India (1967) and subsequent developments.

In the 1967 case of Azeez Basha v. Union of India, the Supreme Court examined the question of whether Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) was a minority educational institution under Article 30(1) of the Indian Constitution. The Court ultimately ruled that AMU was not a minority institution, a decision that has been contested ever since.

The petitioners in Azeez Basha had challenged amendments made to the AMU Act in 1951 and 1965, arguing that they violated the Muslim community’s right to administer an educational institution they had established. These amendments, as previously mentioned, changed the university’s governance structure and composition, including measures that reduced the power of the university’s Court, removed a requirement for Court members to be Muslim, and empowered the Executive Council.

The Court upheld the amendments, determining that the AMU was neither established nor administered by the Muslim minority at the time the Constitution came into force. The Court reasoned that because the central legislature enacted the AMU Act in 1920, the university was established by the government, not a religious minority. The Court determined that the words “establish and administer” in Article 30(1) must be read conjunctively, meaning the minority community must have both established and administered the institution to qualify for protection under this article.

Timeline: key developments after Azeez Basha

November 26, 1981: The two-judge bench in Anjuman-e-Rahmaniya vs. District Inspector of Schools expressed doubts about the Azeez Basha judgment and referred the matter to a larger bench for reconsideration.[4] The case involved a different educational institution and was considering whether registration as a society under the Societies Registration Act changed an institution’s status as a minority institution. The judges questioned whether an institution established with any non-minority participation could be considered a minority institution and directed that a larger bench consider the matter. However, this reference was never conclusively addressed.

December 31, 1981: The AMU Act was amended with the intention of overturning the Azeez Basha judgment. This amendment redefined “University” in the AMU Act to mean “the educational institution of their choice established by the Muslims of India, which originated as the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College, Aligarh, and which was subsequently incorporated as the Aligarh Muslim University”. The amendment also emphasized the university’s role in promoting the educational and cultural advancement of Muslims. However, the legal validity of this amendment, and whether it could supersede the Supreme Court’s Azeez Basha judgment, became a point of contention in future litigation.

 2002: The Supreme Court, in TMA Pai Foundation v. State of Karnataka stated that the determination of whether a community is a minority is to be made at the state level.[5] The Court in TMA Pai framed a question similar to the one in Anjuman-e-Rahmaniya, but ultimately determined that the question of indicia for treating an educational institution as a minority institution should be decided by a regular bench, not the eleven-judge bench hearing the case. However, this question remained unanswered.

2005: AMU, asserting its claim as a minority institution based on the 1981 amendment, reserved 50% of seats in postgraduate medical courses for Muslim candidates. This decision led to the case of Dr. Naresh Agarwal v. Union of India.[6] The petitioners in this case, citing Azeez Basha, contested the reservation policy and argued that AMU was not a minority institution. The Union and the University countered that the 1981 amendment had nullified Azeez Basha.

2005: The Allahabad High Court, relying on the reasoning in Azeez Basha, struck down AMU’s reservation policy.  The High Court determined that the 1981 amendment did not change the basis of the Azeez Basha decision, and so AMU remained a non-minority institution. The High Court reasoned that the Muslim community had willingly surrendered their right to administer AMU to the government. It also found the 1981 amendment impermissible because the amendment sought to overrule the Azeez Basha judgment without removing its legal basis.

2006: The Union government and AMU appealed the Allahabad High Court’s decision to the Supreme Court.

 February 12, 2019: A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court, recognising that the correctness of Azeez Basha remained unresolved, referred the question of AMU’s minority status to a seven-judge bench. The bench determined that previous references, including the one in Anjuman-e-Rahmaniya, had not provided a definitive answer to this question.  This referral also directed the seven-judge bench to consider the impact of the 2010 amendment to the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions Act (NCMEI Act) on AMU’s minority status. The 2010 amendment to the NCMEI Act expanded the definition of a minority institution to include universities, a change the three-judge bench felt necessitated further examination.

Arguments

The petitioners primarily argued that the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) should be recognized as a minority institution based on its historical connection with the Muslim community, and therefore entitled to protection under Article 30(1) of the Indian Constitution. They challenged the long-standing precedent set by Azeez Basha, which had denied AMU minority status. The petitioners contended that the Azeez Basha judgment misinterpreted the scope of Article 30(1) and created a restrictive precedent that limited the ability of minority communities to establish and administer universities. They emphasized that a university could be considered “established” by a minority community even if it was formally incorporated through a legislative act, particularly when the community played a significant role in the institution’s conception, development, and ongoing character. The petitioners highlighted AMU’s historical origins, its contributions to Muslim education and culture, and the university’s strong ongoing connection with the Muslim community as evidence of its minority character.

The respondents argued that AMU’s establishment through the Aligarh Muslim University Act of 1920, enacted by the British Indian government, negated the claim that it was established by the Muslim minority community. They emphasized that the Act granted the government extensive control over the university, including the power to appoint key officials, regulate its functioning, and oversee its finances. This control, they contended, contradicted the autonomy and independence typically associated with a minority institution. The respondents also argued that the Muslim community, in its pursuit of a university, had willingly accepted a certain level of government control in exchange for recognition and support. This acceptance, they argued, amounted to a surrender of the right to establish an independent minority institution. This surrender predated the Indian Constitution, they noted, and therefore could not be reevaluated based on the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution. The respondents further argued that AMU’s designation as an “institution of national importance” under Entry 63 of List I of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution, combined with its integration into the regulatory framework established by the University Grants Commission (UGC) Act of 1956, demonstrated its national character and its alignment with the broader Indian higher education system.

Majority Judgement

Decoupling minority status from statutory incorporation, date of establishment, and administrative composition

The majority judgment authored by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and joined by Justices Sanjiv Khanna, J.B. Pardiwala, and Manoj Misra sought to clarify the criteria for determining the minority status of educational institutions in India. This 4:3 decision rejected a narrow interpretation of Article 30(1) of the Indian Constitution, which guarantees religious and linguistic minorities the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice. The majority opinion articulated a set of principles aimed at ensuring the protection of minority rights in the realm of education.

Firstly, the judgment refuted the long-held notion that statutory incorporation automatically precludes minority status. The court distinguished between “incorporation” and “establishment,” asserting that these concepts are distinct and should not be conflated. Therefore, the mere fact that the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) was created through an Act of Parliament (the AMU Act of 1920) does not inherently negate its potential minority status. The majority opinion emphasized that the critical inquiry should focus on who established the institution and the driving force behind its creation, the purpose of the creation and the way it was created. It is here the majority judgement makes the distinction. [Paragraph 94]

The majority stated that the indicia for treating an educational institution as a minority education institution constitutes the genesis of the idea or ‘brain’ behind the establishment as gauged from the correspondence, government resolutions.  This inquiry should lead back to a person from the minority community. Additionally, the purpose of the institution can be for the benefit of the minority community rather than being ‘solely for the benefit of the minority community.’ [Paragraph 72]

The implementation of the idea, according to the majority opinion of the Supreme Court, needs to be examined but state aid in the implementation would not adversely affect the minority status of the institution. The administrative structure also should reflect the minority character of the institution. [Paragraphs 133-138]

Secondly, the majority judgment debunked the idea that an institution’s date of establishment is determinative of its minority status. The court clarified that Article 30 does not restrict the right to establish and administer educational institutions to minorities only after the Constitution came into effect. This clarification ensures that the protection afforded to minority educational institutions under Article 30 extends to institutions established before the Constitution’s adoption, acknowledging the historical context of minority education in India.[Paragraph 119]

Thirdly, and perhaps most significantly, the court held that administration by non-minority members does not, in itself, negate an institution’s minority status. Recognizing the evolving nature of educational institutions and their commitment to secular values, the majority acknowledged that a minority institution might not require minority members in its administration to maintain its essential character. The court highlighted that a minority institution might prioritize secular education, making the presence of minority members in administration unnecessary. This principle allows minority institutions to embrace inclusivity and diversity in their administrative structures without jeopardizing their minority status and the associated constitutional protections. The court also recognized that compelling a minority institution to surrender its minority character in exchange for recognition or affiliation would violate Article 30(1).[Paragraph 160]

Minority opinion

Justice Surya Kant’s dissenting opinion disagrees with the majority on two crucial points: how the case came before the court and what criteria should be used to determine the minority status of an institution.

First, Justice Surya Kant strongly criticizes the procedural route the case took. The issue of AMU’s minority status started with a two-judge bench that doubted the correctness of a previous five-judge bench ruling (the Azeez Basha case). This two-judge bench then referred the case directly to a seven-judge bench, bypassing the proper channels. Justice Surya Kant argues this is a fundamental error. He cited established legal principles and the Supreme Court’s own precedent in Central Board of Dawoodi Bohra Community v State of Maharashtra to emphasise that a smaller bench cannot overrule or refer the decisions of a larger bench without going through the Chief Justice of India.[7] This, he argued, undermines judicial order and predictability. [Paragraph 91]

Second, on the substantive issue of how to determine minority status, Justice Surya Kant disagreed with the majority’s view that an institution incorporated by a statute can still be considered a minority institution. He emphasizes that both the “establishment” and “administration” of an institution must reflect its minority character for it to receive protection under Article 30(1). This is a conjunctive reading of those two terms – both conditions must be met. [Paragraph 131]

.Justice Surya Kant, in his dissent, listed factors indicating a loss of minority administrative control over an institution: management unaccountable to the founders, external vetoes in staffing decisions, lack of guaranteed minority representation on governing bodies, and a shift from the institution’s original minority-focused goals. These suggest diminished influence of the minority community in administering the institution.[Paragraph 181]

Justice Dipankar Datta expressed caution against recent judicial trends that diverge from historical precedent and original constitutional interpretations. [Paragraph 133] He emphasised that judges are not infallible and should be guided by the framers’ intentions rather than rewriting history. He argued that the right to establish and administer minority institutions (under Article 30) is contingent upon the community’s intent and control. Regarding Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), he noted its founding circumstances, highlighting that it was publicly funded and controlled by the colonial government, with minimal Muslim community oversight—pointing to a limited claim to minority status in its administration. He was the lone judge withing the minority to go ahead and declare that AMU is not a minority educational institution.

Justice Satish Chandra Sharma opined that for a minority community to claim administrative rights under Article 30, they must have “established” the institution, meaning they must have independently and predominantly created it without substantial outside control. The institution’s purpose should primarily serve the minority’s interests, and they should hold decisive administrative power. The term “establish” refers strictly to the act of creation, and cases should evaluate whether the minority community directly contributed to its foundation and operation, according to him. [Paragraph 266]

Understanding the reasoning

El Clásico between purposive and literal interpretation

The majority took the route of purposive interpretation of the Constitutional provision by examining the purpose of Article 30(1) and how the article underscores the imperative to enable minorities to maintain their distinctive characteristics and fulfil their specific needs. Out of the majority judgement’s discussion, a principle emerges— that the special right under Article 30(1) of the Constitution is that the state must grant the minority institution sufficient autonomy to enable it to protect the essentials of its minority character. [Paragraph 65] Using this, the Court also went on to devise the tests which look at the origins and purpose of the institution in question, to answer whether it is a minority institution or not. The majority judgement also stated that it is inconsequential whether the word ‘establish’ in Article 30(1) actually means ‘to bring into existence’ or ‘to found’ the real determination becomes possible only when the veil of the statute is lifted. [Paragraph 110]

Justice Dipankar Dutta’s minority opinion stresses on the literal phrase in Article 30(1) and states that the framers of the Constitution were aware of the circumstances of the times and yet, they used the word ‘establish’ instead of ‘found’ —a broader word. [Paragraph 134] Later he stated that even if the verb ‘establish’ could be read as ‘to found’ which he found no warrant to so read, the Muslim community’s leaving the administration of AMU to be worked out according to the AMU Act shows the clear lack of intention on part of the community to administer it. [Paragraph 133]

These are classic conflicts in terms of interpretation. While the purposive interpretation looks at the origins of the law and the purpose it sought to achieve, the literal interpretation gives importance to the intent and wisdom of those who framed the law since they understood the circumstances better and yet used the wording. While literal interpretation is used to let the law be a stable instrument for order, purposive interpretation enables law to be instrument in social change.

Justice Satish Chandra Sharma’s minority ppinion and loose threads

An interesting line of reasoning emerges from the minority opinion of Justice Satish Chandra Sharma. First, he states that there was no right under Article 30 in 1920 for it to have been surrendered to the government by the minority community via the enactment of AMU Act. Essentially, he stated that the Constitution bestows the right on minorities and before 1950, the right did not exist. This reasoning recognises constitution as a document that effectuates change-something similar to what  Justice Vivian Bose had said in Virendra Singh vs State of UP in 1955 that “The Constitution  by  reason of the authority derived  from and conferred  by the people of India destroyed all vestiges  of arbitrary and despotic power in the territories of India and over its citizens and lands and prohibited just such acts of arbitrary power as the State in the present case was seeking to  uphold.”  The chance at progressive interpretation however gets lost when the opinion says that since there was no right to establish institutions for minorities, there is no question of relinquishing the right. Additionally, he went on to say that limited minority aspects/elements cannot make an institution a ‘minority institution.’ [Paragraph 204]

Justice Satish Chandra Sharma stated in his minority opinion that the court cannot be swayed by one side of the story or the other. He referred to the competing narratives by both appellants—saying that the university was established by Muslim people for the benefit of Muslim community with the help of state sanction, and by respondents—saying that the establishment of the university was largely a government affair with minority elements. He states as follows in Paragraph 204:

“If in a given case, there may be other factual factors pointing towards the contrary, highlighting that whatever the intention or the will of the minority community might have been at the said time, in exchange or during negotiations, if the resultant institution was effectively rendered an open governmental institution [with limited minority aspects], then Article 30 would be out of the picture.”

We do not get to see in his opinion how or why this conclusion can be drawn from the elaborate discussion he did on the facts leading up to the establishment of the university or why a significant effort by the minority community can be trumped by the mere fact that university gets incorporated by a legislative act.

The majority judgement tackles this line of reasoning by saying that In Article 30(1) by saying that, there is no distinction between universities and colleges regarding minority rights. Both serve the common purpose of educating students, and minorities are entitled to autonomy in administering these institutions to benefit their communities. The term “establish” refers to the act of founding an institution and is distinct from “incorporation.” A person or community could establish a teaching college that later became a university, and the right to establish is not limited by legal incorporation under the Act.

The bench however left the determination of the minority status of AMU itself and directed that a smaller bench would apply the criteria as laid out by the seven-judge bench.

(The author is part of the research team of the organisation)

[1] 2024 INSC 856

[2] 1968 AIR 662

[3] Kidwai, S., 2020. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan: Reason, Religion and Nation. Routledge India.

[4] W.P. (C) 54-57 of 1981

[5] Writ Petition (civil)  317 of 1993

[6] 2005(4)ESC2489

[7] (2005) 2 SCC 673

Related:

SC refuses to interfere with selection, appointment of new AMU VC

The never-ending attack on AMU, India’s top-ranked university

Why does the Modi Sarkar want to stymie AMU’s Off Campus Centres?

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Around two months ago the BJP-led government brought a flawed and ill-intended Bill to amend the Waqf Act 1995. It created a furore, and ever since, newspapers, news-portals, Youtube videos have been educating the masses through their “explainers”. Opinion pieces from experts and the theologians too have been published, interjections into the issue with their own position. All this while, the AMUTA, for whatever reasons, has not been able to call a general body meeting or hold discussion sessions. Eventually, on Sunday, September 22, 2024, they called a meeting. Given the general mood on the campus against the Bill, one assumed that there would have been a near consensus on finding ways of working out political tactics and strategies of rejecting and resisting the move. One expected there would be a discussion more on this specific aspect.

That was however not to be. Only two speakers spoke at a “sickening” length as if fellow academics sitting there were school students waiting to be educated, threadbare. This paternalism of these academics against their own colleagues made many among the audience uncomfortable. Speakers’ assumption that others had nothing significant to say, was irksome. The affair degenerated further when two of the longest speaking teachers sought yet another session to again speak on issues they claimed to have omitted to speak on! The presiding authority was generous enough to grant them a second session, again ignoring the fact that others were also competent enough to speak on the issue. These other speakers-in-waiting including this writer (who was the first among the serving AMU faculty to have intervened through his column on the Waqf Bill issue) had a right to speak at greater length: to propose preparing a draft (alternate) bill that could be put in the public domain to mobilise constructive public opinion and also to solicit support of cross-sections of people, including the opposition political parties apart from some of the allies in the ruling coalition. 

Treating the fellow academics as children

In some ways, the two longest speakers were probably right in treating their colleagues as infants or their inferiors. This has to be illustrated by a one instance. This writer used an expression to describe the Executive Council which is massively dominated by a select club of internal teachers. Hence I used the the expression, “Incestuous Club”. This expression was first used by a columnist on March 6, 2023. She then wrote, AMU’s “Executive Council, Academic Council, and the Court are incestuous clubs where everyone is everyone’s someone”.  On March 10, 2023, this piece was rebutted by a professor of law cum vice chancellor of a law university [he eventually made it to the panel for AMU-VC in October-November 2023]. His rebuttal was anything but a precise objection against any sexual connotation of the expression. The EC members aggrieved with my usage of the expression cannot claim to have been ignorant about the columns and rejoinders. The reason being, a long thread of debate on the issue has been carried on The Print.In and on Rediff.Com, besides other portals in 2023. Let it be added that a “synonymous” expression, “blind inbreeding” [in recruitments], was used by the AMU Official Enquiry Committee Report, 1961.

Ever since then (March 6, 2023), dozens of meetings of the AMU Executive Council (EC) have been held thus far. None of these four, or for that matter, other EC members, have raised any objection to the expression. Thus, their silence can be construed as their consent or endorsement of the expression. 

This writer used this expression on a Facebook (Meta) post. They didn’t object to the expression on Facebook or on Whatsapp group of the AMU teachers, called “AMU Faculty 1” where I could have helped them with Dictionary. They, in vengeance and to intimidate me, straight away silently/confidentially, submitted a complaint against this writer, to the Vice Chancellor, possibly to get me penalised or gagged. This is now admitted by at least two (in fact, three) of the four signatories that they have written to the VC to curb my academic freedom. 

The Oxford Advanced Learners’ Dictionary clearly provides the meaning of the expression, “incestuous” club, “of a group of people that have close relationships with one another and do not include people outside their group”. The Dictionary, further illustrates it, in order to make it clearer, by using the expression in a sentence: “the incestuous atmosphere of media discourse”. 

We the teachers have elected four teachers to represent us inside the Executive Council, to safeguard our academic freedom, against the Vice Chancellor. Far from doing so, they are, instead, unfortunately, approaching the VC to penalize us and curb our academic freedom.  At least one of them came to me saying, he shouldn’t have signed on such a document. I said to him that of he regrets his act, he should consider withdrawing the complaint. He declined. 

The Vice Chancellor would, one expects, understand the dictionary meaning as well as the extended meaning of the expression in question, and she will treat the reported complaint accordingly.    

The founder admin of the abovementioned WhatsApp Group of the AMU teachers (almost all Muslims) is one of the four elected members of the EC-AMU. For long, a Pakistani member was added to the WhatsApp Group. Once I spotted it and objected strongly to this. His response was, “it happened inadvertently”. My response was, if they have got a habit of submitting complaint to the VC, why shouldn’t I bring it to the notice of the VC, the Government and also to the media? They had no response.  

Further, one of the four elected members to the EC advised me to refrain from consulting dictionaries; that I should concentrate on teaching history [whereas he indulge in campus (politics) through the EC; would carry out his Tablighi Jama’at activities and the Drama Club engagements, besides doing Mathematics!]. He further preached me not to teach/discuss/raise the issues of caste. Asserting his immodesty, he insisted on adding the prefix of “Honourable” for the AMU-EC (and by implication, for its members, including himself), regardless of no such protocol specified by the AMU. 

I look upon this argument with him as one with a person who holds a right wing ideology and is committed to depoliticising the electorate. Outraged, I argued with him referring to Juan Linz’s book (2000), Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes, which argues that, authoritarianism relies upon a “mentality” (“way of thinking and feeling more emotional than rational that provide non-codified ways of reacting to different situations”). Thus, by depoliticising common people and by trapping them into irrationalities they facilitate variants of authoritarianism and the personality cult (to which, let me add) of “honourables”.  Such people choose to forget that honour is commanded, not demanded. I wish there was a provision of right to recall such representatives!” He had no response to this on the WhatsApp Group.

Another elected representative, the Joint Secretary of the AMUTA, while inviting the teachers to attend the meeting on the Waqf issue, first circulated an “intimidating” message as to whosoever from among the AMU teachers is referring to the faults (retrogression on caste and gender) of India’s Muslims in the 1970s-1980s and asks the Qaum to self-introspect in order to find out the possible reasons of the rise of Neo Hindutva, according to him, amounts to “blaming the victim” and therefore s/he is a Qaum’s villain; therefore only he can command teachers to attend the meeting.  

In a Muslim majority campus like AMU, any academic with an independent (read “contrarian”) view, is already demonised as Qaum’s traitor, by the elected representative. Given the prevalence of competitive right wing radicalism, such intolerance and provocations might endanger the life of the insider-academics espousing “contrarian” views on such issues.  

Be that as it may, the point I am trying to make here is: (1) Either the two long, self-indulgent speakers on the Waqf issue were absolutely right in treating the fellow academics as school kids with spoon-feeding as pedagogy. Or, (2) The speakers are too self-obsessed and narcissistic to make way for listening to fellow colleagues and more importantly to concentrate more on working out the strategies of resistance. Or, (3) They harboured an intention to consume much of time and thereby not letting this session culminate into working out a strategy to resist in a comprehensive way, by a longer discussion on that specific aspect? (To be fair to them, this is less likely, though).

Anyway, on the intervention of fellow academics in the assembly, focus was brought back to working out a draft bill. This would eventually be endorsed by the academics attending the meeting (There was a thin presence in the meeting).   

Alienation of the Qaum, or disjunction between the Qaum and its self-serving elite    

Most interesting aspect is, these educated elites of the Qaum were then pledging to fight the BJP regime, whereas, the commoners of the Qaum have already been on the streets against the Waqf Bill for the last many weeks. Barring one or two exception, the collective of the AMU teachers seem to have risen to register their protest belatedly. This shows how yawning is the gap between the commoners of the Qaum and its educated, affluent elites!

Even more importantly, while these elites do persuade the commoners of the Qaum to keep waging wars against the ruling dispensation, they themselves behave with cunning opportunism. Consider the empanelment result of the AMU-VC in October-November 2023. Unlike other central universities, AMU empanels its VC through its own EC and Court (both the bodies excessively dominated by internal members), without advertising the position to invite application from across India. This select Club (EC & Court) eventually ended up empanelling all the three from the internal faculty members in November 2023. The predecessor VC too was not only internal faculty but also a resident of the town for the last few generations; he eventually became a legislator belonging to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in UP Council as well as vice president of the ruling party. This unprecedented inbreeding was so brazen that some of the internal teachers seeking to be empanelled as VC have approached the Allahabad High Court to challenge this. 

Insiders in the AMU know too well as to which of these (empanelled) candidates for VC-ship or their alleged patrons have been writing columns in favour of the BJP-RSS in the national English dailies, testifying further to their opportunism. AMU insiders also know it very well as to which of the AMU teachers (aligning with Muslim BJP legislator) canvassed for the BJP candidates in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Videos of such event(s) had circulated among the AMU teachers and on the social media. The AMU insiders also know with considerable clarity as to which of the EC members (from among the AMU teachers and teacher-administrators in the EC), and their clouts, were inclined towards which of these “pro-regime” candidates for VC-ship. 

The short point is: sections of these elite Clubs of AMU have already aligned with the ruling BJP and at the same time the Club has also been instigating the commoners to keep fighting the BJP and facing reprisals from the hate-filled vindictive regime. Understandably, this approach provides such opportunist elites with stronger bargaining power vis a vis the governing party.  

AMU’s Own “Anti-Waqf” (mis) deeds

The AMU itself is alleged to have indulged in erasing the names and identities of the Waaqif (the donor of land estates and assets who institutes/creates the Waqf or charitable endowment). For instance, it has been reliably learnt that the renowned physicist cum the last principal of the MAO College (when it became incorporated into AMU in 1920) and also the founder of the department of Physics in the Lucknow University, Prof. Wali Mohammad (1886-1968) had instituted the Waqf for AMU; one of these is the costly land on which a residential Hall of students is existing. The Hall is named after Nadim Tarin who bore the construction cost of the students’ residential Hall. Sadly, the name of the donor/waaqif of the land stands obliterated. We are told, there could be many such Waqf estates and assets dedicated to AMU, wherein the Waaqifs/donors remain unacknowledged and anonymized.  

In other words, with such state of affairs and the corruption of land-grabbing (by the influential people within the state administration, Waqf Boards and society), ordinary Muslims have become cynical. There is a huge deficit of the people’s connect with the Waqf estates and assets. This would dissuade the common people from adequately agitating and mobilising against the Waqf Bill 2024. This in turn, one apprehends, would fail to mount as much of pressure on the regime, as is required. 

I made similar arguments in my essay as to how and why the current dispensation succeeded in demonising the best of our universities. Questioning the relevance of India’s elite institutions to the social and economic challenges facing Indian societies, I argued that the lack of socially relevant research and teaching has contributed in part to society’s disaffection with “our respectable institutions.”   

The significant disconnect between the educated elites and the common Muslims pose a critical challenge. As highlighted by Omar Khalidi (2010) who records a damning indictment: “[research] publications on Indian Muslims since 1950 to 2010 reveals that the three AMU faculty combined [Political Science, Sociology, Economics] have contributed little to the burgeoning literature on Indian Muslims”. Of course, the Indian state didn’t stop them from carrying out such researches on the India’s Muslim communities.

 Moreover, as Daniele Struppa notes, “A university is a microcosm of our larger society that reflects different beliefs, ideologies, experiences, and backgrounds. While that is exactly what I love about a university community, it also comes with the reality that prejudice lives within our communities as well: we are not immune to the ills of our society”. 

Given this concern, the challenge before the academia in our times is to establish an effective and efficacious connect with the rest of the society, if the current democratic downslide has to be resisted and arrested with forging solidarities. Quite a number of teachers (with clout) in AMU, at the moment, seem to be missing this point, as they are the ones either falling into the trap of becoming practioners of Muslim communalism or aligning opportunistically with the Hindu Right, or both. Patronage-distribution and clientelism is embedded in the governance structures of AMU. So much so that some teachers have shamelessly been continuing in certain administrative offices of the AMU for the last 10 to 12 years, or even more! Some of them holding three administrative positions concurrently, compromising with their teaching; forget about their research. Their clout is so entrenched that successive VCs have failed to replace them with new faces in the University administration. 

Such a pathetic state of affairs needs to be addressed immediately by many reforms including change in composition of the EC, which defiantly adopts any kind of resolution, disregarding financial implications, sense of justice and the government’s or UGC’s inviolable norms. For instance, for recruitments in the AMU schools, they have outrageously reversed the norms of the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS, which has got only 30% component on interview and 70% component on written test-for admissions). In contrast, the requirement for AMU schools is reversed,  70% for the interview and only 30% for written test. This is obviously designed to favour their own candidates, already recruited on a temporary basis, in large numbers, over the last many years. Likewise, in certain cases, some influential employees have placed themselves in Old Pension Scheme despite having been recruited on regular basis after 2004 (even advertisement of the post was after 2004 making it even stronger case of New Pension Scheme). The Audit and Account of the government needs thoroughly probe this. The examination system is thoroughly compromised even at the level of question paper-setting and moderation. Yet, the Controller of Examinations has been continuing in his office for very long. The rules state that tenure-statutory administrative positions of the University are required to be advertised and filled every five years. There are many such irregularities, including financial chaos, which need probing by independent government agencies. The assets of such teacher-administrators need to be probed by such agencies too.

The question for the ordinary men and women of the Qaum is: if their educated and affluent elites can’t mount enough pressure upon the AMU-VC to replace these clouts and reshuffle the AMU administration then such a weak-kneed and helpless lot can’t be expected to muster enough strength to press the current dispensation in New Delhi to withdraw the Waqf Bill 2024.  

Most important of all, ordinary Muslims need to be alerted by the conscientious section of people, that a chunk of their educated and affluent elites have switched over to the saffron establishment, leaving them vulnerable, isolated and, above all, helpless to fend for themselves. Felix Pal (2020) has documented a section of western UP Muslim elites opportunistically joining saffron outfits.

The time has come for the AMU [Teachers’ Association] and the communities to rise to the occasion and unite their members. They must actively engage in strategies that not only resist the Waqf Amendment Bill but also address the broader implications of elite’s perfidious detachment from the community. Only by fostering a genuine dialogue and acknowledging the voices of all constituents can we hope to challenge the majoritarian regime effectively. The survival and dignity of the embattled Qaum of Indian Muslims and the country’s organic plurality depend on it. 

(The author is a Professor of History, Aligarh Muslim University)

Related:

The Waqf Bill 2024: An Open Letter to the Joint Committee of Parliament, the Opposition, and India’s Muslim Communities

Three Banes of India’s Muslims: Victimhood Syndrome, Power Theology, Obsession with Identity Politics

No Central Funds, Aligarh Muslim University’s Second Campus in West Bengal Faces Uncertain Future

The post The AMU Teachers’ Association (AMUTA) and Waqf Worries: Ordinary members of the Qaum are caught between a self-serving elite and a majoritarian Regime appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Universities, ‘transmit, interpret and develop the cultural tradition of the society’. They can either ‘continuously reproduce’ these traditions or ‘critically transform’ them, said Habermas. What did the two centrally funded ‘Muslim’ universities in India, viz., the Aligarh Muslim University and its “rebel sister”, the Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia, really do?

The Cambridge trained French scholar, Laurence Gautier, has made an immensely successful attempt at working out the abovementioned question by bringing in wide range of empirical details, embarking on a very deep analysis of a wide range of evidence and putting these in larger perspective. She has proceeded to examine as to how did these two denominational universities, and the Muslims associated with these universities, negotiate their place in India, their individual rights as citizens, and their group rights as a religious minority, and/or as descendants of ex-ruling class, one must say. (The work also explores Muslim-ness of Indians and Indian-ness of its Muslim communities).

The Role of AMU & JMI in shaping Muslim identity politics

Whether such negotiations were confined more to the domain of political articulations or whether they produced researches too? Such articulations remain and remained largely tilted towards a particular class within the community of particular region(s). This Urdu speaking Ashraaf elite was called “Kutcherry Milieu” by the best biographer of the MAO College (which became AMU in 1920), David Lelyveld (1978). This is a particularly more relevant question to be raised for the AMU, because, in the colonial period, the All India Mohammedan Educational Conference (AIMEC, founded in 1886) soon became the political organ of the Muslim League rather than keeping the promise of opening up a chain of residential schools/colleges across the subcontinent. Given this legacy,  worldview and outlook, did AMU, post-partition (for pre-partition days, introduction of the book does deal with these questions), ever raise self-introspective question against itself? Did the institution bother to question –in the republican-democratic era –why its enrolments, recruitments and governance-personnel suffer from an elite syndrome: the predominance of a select Club of a particular region-class of the Qaum?

The AMU, in the late 1940s had become epicentre of the Muslim League with the separatists enjoying a stronger presence on the campus. Various circles (not confined to the Hindu Right alone) memorialise AMU as a villain of Partition. The Pakistani intelligentsia also reinforces this idea. On the other hand, Muslims of various persuasions, look upon AMU not only as a platform aimed at their educational uplift but also as a fort safeguarding their identity. In fact, the latter aspect is arguably stronger than the former. This is perhaps congenitally associated with MAO/AMU. Look at Peter Hardy (1972: 103-104)’s assertion, “It is, however, important to recognise the limitations of Aligarh as an educational foundation. At no time did it educate a majority of the Muslim graduates even of the North-Western Provinces [UP]… Success in examinations and individual achievement were at a discount”.

Did the two universities question and address, even in their academic outputs, caste-based hierarchies and exploitation or did they deny or downplay these? Did they, through their research as well as through their political interventions and mobilizations, challenge regressive patriarchy, or, rather did they align with, or capitulate before the orthodoxy? Did they contribute towards secularisation-pluralisation of the state and society in general and the community (Qaum) in particular? Did they democratise the institutions and resources monopolised by the “Kutcherry Milieu”? Or, did they treat Indian Secularism more as a favour to Muslim conservatism and communalism and regressive patriarchy, thereby stoking and bolstering majoritarianism?

A large number of Urdu memoirs of the Aligarh community (faculty, alumni) mostly indulge in self-praise, rather than being critical and self-introspective. [Of significant note in exception are critical essays of Kunwar M Ashraf (1903-1962), in the Aligarh Magazine (Urdu), “Aligarh Ki Siyasi Zindagi” (1953-1955) and “Aligarh aur Siyasiyat-e-Hind” (1960)]. Most of these  reproduce,  disseminate and celebrate a class culture (not the mass culture), often misrepresented as the “Ganga Jamuni Tehzeeb”, discounting core academic production for an ameliorative and empowering politics of pluralization and thereby strengthening of Indian democracy. Of course, the two English language memoirs brought out by the AMU-VCs (both were not AMU alumni), viz., Badruddin Tyabji (1907-1995 ) and Nasim Faruqi (d. 12012) in the 1960s and 1990s respectively, have certainly given us critical accounts of some of these aspects.

The two Universities produced two “intertwined yet distinctive political trajectories” (p. 11). By the early 1990s, as the Chapter Six in the book, “Bastions of Islam”, demonstrates, the two campuses were no longer distinctive of each other in terms of shaping and articulating Muslim identity politics. Both campuses had become strong centres of retrogressive forces of north Indian Muslims. According to the author, the JMI became so, more pronouncedly, in the 1990s. This is indeed the boldest and bravest chapter of the book.

Competitive religious radicalism since the 1970s

The AMU was never weak in terms of its right wing Muslim presence and influence, though in the 1970s and 1980s it became even more pronounced along those lines. Both Universities were now becoming even stronger bastions of Islamism and retrogression rather than enhancing the qualitative and quantitative output in terms of academic research and or prioritizing the educational uplift of the Qaum. They were rather more engaged in emotive, identitarian issues. Chapter Six, towards its concluding notes, brilliantly underlines the fact that the more the Qaum turned towards emotive symbolism and identitarianism, the more they (un)wittingly pushed down the agendas of educational and political empowerment of the Muslim communities within. Worse still, the more they stoked majoritarian forces through their own retrogression, the more they made themselves all the more vulnerable, as this partly contributed to pushing India towards Hindu supremacism. Laurence Gautier, in this significant chapter takes into account the sub-continental as well as global phenomenon of the rise of competitive religious radicalism. She has brilliantly benefitted from the essays of Anuj Nadaur (2006), Simon Wolfgang Fuchs (2022), Yoginder Sikand (2003), etc.

Chapter Six of the book under review is a greater eye-opener, particularly for those who are steeped into and subscribe to the victimhood narratives of the Muslim elite and also the Islamic Right Wing. This wonderful chapter also exposes as to how do the hasty, ambitious Muslims bolster their political career through advocating, championing and perpetuating conservatism within the Qaum and pushing them rightward? Very skillfully, they keep the commoners of the Qaum blinded by the fact that such approaches strengthen Hindu majoritarian forces and inflict ever greater vulnerability upon the Qaum. The more both campuses (AMU and JMI) pushed the Qaum towards “Islamisation of Knowledge (IoK) and society” (funded by some of the Islamic countries from the 1970s) the more they ignored the under-representation of India’s Muslims in education, in public employment and in other such sectors such as media and judiciary. The chapter underlines this Rightward shift of the educated segments of the Qaum that was prompted/inspired by and/or coincided with the Maududi’s worldview, the Iranian Revolution (1979), Afghan Jihad, Radicalization of Pakistan under Ziaul Haq, etc.. This is what makes the chapter even more insightful.

Interestingly, during the late 1980s and early 1990s [when the localised dispute of Ayodhya was nationalised through competitive communalism and around the time of the Hindu reaction against the legislative undoing (1986) of the Supreme Court verdict (1985) on Shah Bano and the Ayodhya campaign of the Hindu radicals], the cataloguing of the Muslim underrepresentation was articulated either through the pamphlets of the three major Communist parties, viz., CPI, CPI-M, CPI-ML Liberation, and in certain liberal media outlets such as the Illustrated Weekly of India. Besides, the cataloguing of Muslim under-representation in the Gopal Singh Report (1983). These core issues were being raised to some extent by the state appointed VCs and other functionaries of the two universities but, significantly, not, in any significant measure, by the Islamists on the two campuses. Gautier writes (p. 286), “in the 1980s, university authorities increasingly invoked the need to uplift backward Muslims to frame their actions in a consensual framework.” Though, Gautier has expressed ignorance of benefitting from such pamphlets.

The growing Islamic fundamentalism combined with the boom in Gulf economies added to the anxieties of the sections of Hindu population which feared that the oil money may fund mass conversions to Islam and ‘give to Islamism in India a new glow of self confidence in one sudden sweep’ (pp. 284-285). [A similar apprehension was raised by Lala Lajpat Rai (1865-1928) in the 1920s, after the Pan Islamist Khilafat Movement, best articulated by Intezar Husain, in his Urdu biography (1999), Ajmal-e-Azam]. This is a significant point which needs to be probed further by collecting some data from the ground. As of now, there are very limited explorations about the socio-economic status of the Muslim communities of different regions and sub-regions. Most of the better known University academics, working around such themes of India’s Muslim communities, shy away from collecting such data from the field. Another aspect, missing in this chapter, is to probe this question:  how, while Islamists were active on both campuses, engaged in and “advocating the purifying of Islam, promoting Islamic values and prioritizing the language of religion over the language of minority rights or social welfare”, their own children were –at the same time –pursuing all kinds of empowering education in professional courses as well as in the humanities. Also, how this project of Islamisation was, in itself, shaking overall secularisation and provoking a Hindu majoritarian reaction and thereby aggravating the vulnerability of the Qaum.

Another significant insight coming out of this volume is in the Chapter Four, “Resisting Minority Politics, Holding on to Composite Nationalism: Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) in the post-Nehruvian period”. The author underlines that “JMI’s atmosphere became more orthodox in the 1980s when the ‘influx’ of teachers from AMU increased significantly”, particularly in the Engineering department, and “‘the liberal [ethos of JMI] was slowly isolated’”; and that, “arrival of teachers trained at AMU led to the rise of ‘class consciousness’ on the campus, thereby jeopardising JMI’s vision of a ‘classless society’” (pp. 192-193). The JMI’s Department of Education excelled for as long as the AMU alumni weren’t recruited as JMI’s faculty. This is demonstrated here by the author’s well-tabulated data.

Laurence Gautier, while expounding on the student politics of AMU during 1965-1981, looks upon the minoritarian assertion as politics of pluralising the Indian democracy and that it was also the case with non-Muslim Indians, the Hindu OBCs, who were asserting their rights to a share in the structures and processes of power and were articulating their grievances against “Nehruvian Consensus”. To contain such assertions, Emergency was imposed, after which the Hindu Right gained legitimacy as well as registered rise and expansion, also funded by the Hindu diaspora.

Cunning craft of the Qaum’s elites: nationalizing local issues for self-perpetuation

This raises a question as to why and how the local AMU issue of reservation for “internal” students in AMU enrolments, a discrimination in favour of the privileged, was cunningly made into a larger  problem the Muslim communities across India, in 1965? This cunning craft of the descendants of the “Kutcherry Milieu” needs to be decoded minutely. This particular clique of the Qaum had kind of forced Sir Syed to shun progressive religious reformism as much as also to withdraw the welfaristic (charitable) Waqf Bill (1879). Yet, all such forces succeeded in taking over his College almost completely, soon after his death in 1898. Some of them, without subscribing to his modernist reformism, had opportunistically and tactically aligned with Sir Syed because he had access to the high echelons of the colonial administration up to the Viceroy and his legislative council.

Chapter Two is particularly more nuanced because it makes a very fine distinction between the visions of Nehru (the Prime Minister), Maulana Azad (the Education Minister) and Zakir (the Vice Chancellor) around the question of what kind of role should and would AMU play in the post-Partition period. In a polite and skillfully understated manner (English is anyway said to be a language of the under-statement), Gautier has articulated the tension between the liberal state, Muslim state actors (often derided as the Sarkari Musalman) and the Muslim Right Wing on and off the campus.

Interestingly, while the sarkar (state) and the Sarkari Musalmans attempted at combining the goals of educational uplift of the Muslims as well as helping Muslims acquire liberal-pluralist outlook, the Muslim Right Wing was geared towards preserving and promoting regressivism and emotive priorities than on any educational uplift. That minority regressivism remained a contributory factor towards strengthening Hindu majoritarianism, is still a less addressed aspect in academia and in the popular domain. Not without substance, the Liberal- Left academic and political forces are often charged of going silent or soft on Muslim regressivness.

Socio-political movements and silence on the campus on caste among Muslims

While discussing social justice movements and backward caste assertions, the relevant chapter of this book does not, it appears, adequately engage with the layered dynamics of the JP Movement and Anti-Emergency resistance. As to how much or less AMU and JMI identified with or stayed away from those movements? The student activists turned mainstream politicians of the era have been interviewed by the author. While bringing out polyphonic voices on these campuses on the question of caste, the dominant narratives on the campuses have almost denied existence of such a discriminatory practice. The AMU and JMI were almost equally aloof in 1990 when there were direct clashes across the country among the students on the implementation of the Mandal Commission Recommendations, despite the fact that as many as 82 communities of Muslims were to benefit from the implementation of the Mandal Report, in 1990.

The narratives within Muslim politics generated out of and sustained within AMU, needs further probing. It needs no particular mention that many Muslim leaders emerged on mainstream Indian electoral politics out of these agitations on AMU issues in the 1960s and 1970s. Some of the names are: Arif M Khan, Azam Khan, Javed Habib (d. 2012), and of course leaders such as Abdul Jalil Faridi (1913-1974), Ilyas Azmi (1934-2023), and scores of Muslim leaders (including the theologians) across the country. Remember the lines of Lelyveld & Minault (1974) that the AMU was a “profoundly political enterprise”.

Laurence Gautier clearly demonstrates that before the Emergency (i.e., during 1972-1974) and after it (1977-1981), Muslims, around the AMU campus and related issues, emerged as the interlocutor between the Qaum and the Indian State. Soon after that, the Muslim bodies or pressure groups such as the AIMPLB (founded in April 1973), and BMAC/BMCC emerged on the scene. I repeat, the Muslim politics of nationalising the local issues, and secondly, the formation of pressure groups least for educational uplift and empowerment and more for emotive cultural politics, speak tellingly of the priorities of Muslim politics, among north Indian Muslim elites. This also reminds me of an assertion of Theodre P Wright Jr about the Muslim politics in India, raising the question of whether the Muslim minorities can actualise more of their goals through pressure groups rather than through electoral party politics. Paul Brass and Harry Blair, endorsing Wright, are inclined to suggest that the pressure groups yield better results.

Gender Issues: dominance of regressive patriarchy and retrogression

Chapter seven (on gender) is forthright in stating that “In the 1970s, Islamist groups gained increasing influence on campus as they sought to promote adherence to ‘Íslamic values’, including with regard to men-women relations’’ (p. 375) and “At JMI, the SIMI gained popularity among a part of the student body thanks to their firm stance against the state’s interference in Muslim Personal Law” (p. 379). A fairly distinct reactionary patriarchy prevailed on the campus, in which the Islamists having been dominant and hegemonic forces on the both campuses, neither pushed for reforms from within nor did they allow the state to intervene in favour of gender justice. Women, including the various shades of feminists (except among a miniscule sections of the Left) remained ‘guardians of tradition’ rather than ‘actors of change’.

The author candidly states that “The Shah Bano controversy had a deeply divisive impact both at JMI and at AMU” (p. 378). The author however avoids saying that the divisive impact was not confined within the two ‘Muslim’ campuses. Rather the stubbornness of the Muslim conservatives and reactionaries was going to change the whole grammar, syntax and vocabulary of politics across the country in the days to come. This eventually came to be confessed even by Ali Miyan Nadvi (1914-1999), one of the prominent villains of the Shah Bano dispute. The narratives of the vulnerability of the Muslims were falsified by their power to arm-twist the regime to legislate against the Supreme Court verdict of April 1985. The two campuses, in effect, stood by or capitulated before such reactionary forces, subsequently contributed, in whatever degree, by pushing India towards the grip of majoritarianism. The narrative-making elite (Kutcherry Milieu) of India’s Muslims is yet to persuade the Qaum to bring in reforms from within or let the state do the needful. Needless to add, many such reforms have already been carried out in most of Islamic countries. Yet, the reactions of the dominant Muslim elite to date, are as outrageous as were in the 1970s and 1980s. Most recently, one could see this in the S[h]ayera Bano Case (2017) as much as in the latest Supreme Court verdict of July 10, 2024. In this specific regard, it is difficult to share the optimism that the author has sanguinely articulated in the last two pages (pp. 388-389) of the chapter of the book.

Chapter seven appears to be implicitly rather kinder to Muslim conservatives in a very limited sense. The author seems to suggest (p. 380) that “the growing militancy of the Hindu right” and the BJP support to UCC, kind of forced some Muslim progressives to promote reform from within. To some extent, fair enough. However, please pay attention to these words of Saumya Saxena (2018, p. 424): “the first battle of Muslim personal law was fought in the 1970s rather than the 1980s”. The AIMPLB came into existence in April 1973. It was outcome of a series of Muslim protests in late 1972 against state interference in reforming the laws regarding adoption of child and maintenance to divorced women. The Muslim Right Wing was in the forefront of such protests and in formation of the AIMPLB. The academics of the Islamic Studies, Theology, Law, Gender Studies, of the two universities haven’t yet explained to the Qaum that Instant Triple Talaq (divorce; ITT) is Un-Quranic, that maintenance is not Un-Islamic, that adoption per se isn’t prohibited in Quran, it only prohibits concealing the biological paternity of the child adopted, that it won’t be anti-Islamic to give equal share to the daughters in inheriting parental assets. These highly paid academics benefitting from funds of the secular state haven’t come out in open against the reactionary theologians exposing them about their stances on these abovementioned issues. Thus, their silence or silent support to the reactionary theologians is undermining the secularization processes, which eventually provides fodder to majoritarianism.

On certain aspects, this book has preferred to spare the two denominational universities, in exposing their flip sides, such as their deficit (self-chosen?) in academic output on the most immediate concerns regarding caste, gender, Minority conservatism, communalism and isolationism-exceptionalism). Do they really deserve this much of empathy?

Muslims in their political articulation talk of their victimisation, and discrimination but in terms of academic output of the AMU, we have rightly been accused by Omar Khalidi that there is “absence of interest in Indian Muslim issues at the three departments”, viz., Economics, Sociology and Political Science.

Political priorities of the AMU-JMI elites have been to generate agitations more intensely about emotive and identitarian issues. Their narrative-making politics has prioritised emotive issues and of lack of criminal justice system in the anti-Muslim communal pogroms, besides underrepresentation in education, public employment, legislative and other institutions. But they have chosen largely not to conduct researches on such issues, in order to make stronger advocacy, as indicted by Omar Khalidi (2010), in his academic audit of the research production of AMU.

How do we explain this (mis)prioritization? Can we not see certain kind of politics played out by the elites of Muslims against its own wider community? This deficit among AMU-JMI elites (the narrative-makers) on those counts is contributing to the skewing of political priorities, fuelling of prejudices, fears and apprehensions. Arguably, our own forthright incompetence and mediocrity, that has harboured a less competitive, more cocooned spaces, in terms of enrolments, recruitments, promotions, etc., within these “Muslim” campuses is a cause?

Anti-democratic governance structure of AMU: An incestuous club

The governance structure within AMU is such that it has been helping it, through dangerous and malicious inbreeding, inside the Executive Council (has got almost 80% of its members from among its own faculty), up to the level of empanelling its VCs (without inviting application from outside through an advertisement), to protect, promote and perpetuate the interests of a small club of Muslim elites (Kutcherry Milieu). The narrative-generating elites of both universities as well as of the theological seminaries of these regions, increasingly confined mostly to western UP and Bhojpuri speaking districts of UP (such as Azamgarh), are also home to some of the noted Islamic seminaries. In contrast, the BHU has got all its EC members nominated by the Union government since the 1950s. AMU is the only University where certain teachers continue in certain administrative offices for far too long — even over a decade –with preposterously poor academic credentials. Successive internal VCs perpetuate and strengthen these cliques and clouts rather than launching a crackdown against these debilitative lobbies.

Record preservation in AMU leaves much to be desired. Had it been preserving the day-to-day resolutions and transactions of the AMU Students’ Union and of the AMU Teachers’ Associations and other such formal and informal pressure groups, lobbies and clouts (including the sub-regional ones) within AMU, the practice would have helped for academic researchers to bring out the layered details of the political-ideological character and Qaum’s misplaced priorities and the huge disjunction of aspirations between the elites and the people of the Qaum.

Taking forward from the insights provided by Laurence Gautier, a sequel volume along these lines on the two campuses, or even taking into account more of the “Muslim” campuses can well be a research project worth taking up. A hint (p. 236, Table 5.1) at tardy, slow, lackadaisical and reluctant efforts of the Muslim elites of western UP in establishing Muslim minority educational campuses and educational trusts, compared to the laudable efforts of their counterparts in southern and western India, is a question of deeper concern that requires consideration.

Sadly, Uttar Pradesh’s Muslim elites compare very unfavourably even with the Bihar Muslim elite which is otherwise identified as poorer and backward. In this specific table of educational initiatives of Muslims, post-partition, Kerala tops it all in terms of establishing total number of Muslim colleges until the early 1980s. Tamil Nadu is far ahead despite having the least percentage of Muslim population. They created quality Muslim educational institutions out of the secular laws of Trusts rather than the self-perpetuating “scam” called Waqf-e-Aulad. Thus, the already short share of the south Indian enrolments in AMU kept falling further.

With such tabulated data of the book under discussion, I propose before the academics, researchers and commentators that a precise gaze on, and scrutiny of, the roles of the Muslim elites of UP, and their dominance/hegemony in the narrative-making power/entitlements of Muslim politics is awaited.

Another significant question to be raised here is: why the newly independent liberal state of India was more favourably inclined towards the ex-Leaguers than towards the consistent Congressite Muslims? Were they greater vote-catchers for the ruling Congress than the consistent Congressites? If so, then what does it tell us about the Muslim politics and its elites? Such a proposition is prima facie provocative but the differential treatments in terms of supplying state fund to the JMI and AMU does testify this proposition. There are many more of such evidence in terms of scores of the overnight turncoats among the UP Muslim leaders, such as Begum Qudsia Aizaz Rasul (1908-2001), not to say of similar testimony in the Urdu novels of Abdus Samad, Do Gaz Zamin and Khwabon Ka Sawera.

In summing up, this wonderfully well-researched book offers profound and nuanced exploration of the socio-political dynamics of AMU and JMI (north Indian Muslim middle classes and elites) since 1947. It provides valuable insights into the evolving landscapes of the politics of Muslim communities in India. This is indeed an important resource for scholars to elaborate upon many aspects outlined in this book pertaining to the polyphonic voices on almost every important issue which the Muslim communities are grappling with. Thus, this engrossing read offers many promises to open up several unchartered layers of the politics of India’s Muslim communities, waiting to be opened up, with even more courage. The post-independence incarnates of the “Kutcherry Milieu” are waiting to be dissected, x-rayed and held accountable in order to make a new move in a menacingly majoritarian rightward shift of India. The increasingly atrophying Liberal-Left too needs to rethink their hitherto flawed treatment of Muslim regressivism. It is already too late.

[Note: This is an abridged version of the draft presented as a panel discussion on the book, in the India International Centre (IIC), New Delhi, on 28 August 2024].

(The author is a Professor of History, Aligarh Muslim University)

Related:

The Waqf Bill 2024: An Open Letter to the Joint Committee of Parliament, the Opposition, and India’s Muslim Communities

Three Banes of India’s Muslims: Victimhood Syndrome, Power Theology, Obsession with Identity Politics

No Central Funds, Aligarh Muslim University’s Second Campus in West Bengal Faces Uncertain Future

The post Political History of India’s Two Muslim Universities since 1947 appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The post Happy Sir Syed Day! appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Kalyan Singh, the 89-year-old former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, who hailed from Aligarh, has left behind a legacy that will be adequately used by the Bharatiya Janata Party in the upcoming elections. The first big indicator came soon after Singh’s demise last week, when the UP Deputy CM KP Maurya announced that major roads in Ayodhya, Lucknow, Prayagraj, Etah, Bulandshahr and Aligarh will be named after him. Singh was hailed as a “Ram Bhakt” who “gave up power for Ram Mandir but did not fire on the kar sevaks” 

राम भक्त स्वर्गीय #kalyansinghji बाबू जी के नाम लोक निर्माण विभाग अयोध्या अलीगढ़,एटा,बुलंदशहर प्रयागराज में एक एक मार्ग के नाम होगा
बाबु जी ने राम मंदिर के लिए सत्ता छोड़ दी परंतु कारसेवकों पर गोली नहीं चलाई !!
अधिकारियों को जल्द प्रस्ताव प्रस्तुत करने के निर्देश !!

— Keshav Prasad Maurya (@kpmaurya1) August 23, 2021

It was expected of the BJP, especially the Uttar Pradesh unit to hail their leader, who was UP’s chief minister when the Babri Mosque was demolished on December 6, 1992. Singh, along with BJP veterans LK Advani and M M Joshi, Singh was among the 32 people acquitted in the demolition case in September 2020.

Controversy over condolences

Now a fresh controversy has erupted, involving vastly different people. Samajwadi Party supremo Akhilesh Yadav who chose to stay away from attending the public condolence to Kalyan Singh when his body was kept at his Mall Avenue residence in Lucknow on August 22. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President JP Nadda were in attendance leading the party in paying final respects to their departed leader. According to news reports no one from the SP turned up at Singh’s residence, including former CMs Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh yadav.

BJP state president Swatantra Dev Singh raised the issue accursing Akhilesh Yadav of deliberately staying away, asking, “Was it the love of Muslim votes that stopped him from paying his last respects to the tallest leader of the backward community?” The Deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya added that Akhilesh “had lost the moral right to speak for the backward community by not paying last respects to Kalyan Singh,” stated news reports. However, the SP said that Yadav had condoled Singh’s death and had issued a statement. But that is how politics plays out, in life and death.

However, a bigger controversy has errupted on the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) campus where posters, reportedly ‘signed’ by “Students of Aligarh Muslim University” have come up and condemned Tariq Mansoor the Aligarh Muslim University Vice-Chancellor for condoling former chief minister Kalyan Singh. According to news report, the posters, reported NDTV, and other news media, were displayed on the AMU campus state, “Praying for a criminal is an unforgiving crime” and accuse the VC that his words of condolence on Singh’s demise “are not only a matter of shame but also hurt the religious sentiments of our community.”

The poster reportedly alleged, “Kalyan Singh is not only the main culprit in the demolition of Babri Masjid but also an offender for not obeying the Supreme Court’s order” adding, 

“The VC’s condolence has brought disgrace to the entire AMU fraternity, its traditions and the Aligarh Movement that believe in justice and fairness. We strongly condemn our VC for his shameful act.”

Talibani thinking, says UP minister

Soon, the Uttar Pradesh government reportedly warned of strict action against people they accused of having “Talibani thinking” and according to news reports a probe has been initiated. The BJP’s minister Mohsin Raza, UP’s minister of state for minority welfare, Muslim Waqf and Haj, condemned the posters on the AMU campus saying the V-C was acting according to “our culture” adding that putting up such posters was an attempt to spoil the atmosphere, “If some persons of Talibani ”soch” are there, we will also treat them accordingly,” he stold the media. According to reports, the matter will be probed and strict action will be taken so that it will set an example for others, said the minister adding, “This is a university of Hindustan. The Taliban is not here. This is an attempt to vitiate the atmosphere.” 

What is Kalyan Singh’s legacy?

A must read to understand what Kalyan Singh’s legacy was and how it evolved over time is this analysis titled: Newsrooms, Living Rooms and Class Rooms: Evolution of the Ayodhya Narrative by Teesta Setalvad. It shows how, over time, “a corrosive refashioning of India took place in our personal and social spaces.”

These excerpts from Communalism Combat and SabrangIndia archives which report the observations of the Justice Liberhan Commission, that probed the sequence of events that led to the Babri Masjid demolition in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992. It observed that the chief minister of the state of Uttar Pradesh, “Kalyan Singh, his ministers and his handpicked bureaucrats created man-made and cataclysmic circumstances which could result in no consequences other than the demolition of the disputed structure and broadened the cleavage between the two religious communities, resulting in massacres all over the country. They denuded the state of every legal, moral and statutory restraint and wilfully enabled and facilitated the wanton destruction and the ensuing anarchy.” 

Nearly two decades later, on September 30, 2020, a special CBI court in Lucknow acquitted all the accused in the criminal conspiracy case surrounding the demolition of the 16th century Babri mosque in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992. Special CBI judge SK Yadav delivered the judgment that ran into over 2,000 pages and held that there was no criminal conspiracy behind the demolition. The court further held that the demolition wasn’t planned and that the accused persons were trying to stop the mob, and not inciting violence. The court further said that it could not probe the authenticity of the audio and video evidence provided by the CBI. It said that those who climbed the dome were anti-social elements. The 32 accused included political heavyweights such as Lal Krishna Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharati, Sakshi Maharaj, Kalyan Singh, Vinay Katiyar among others. Three key accused; VHP’s Ashok Singhal, Giriraj Kishore and Vishnu Hari Dalmia had died before the verdict.

Hindutva’s large–scale takeover of educational institutions

In 1999 SabrangIndia had analysed, “Hindutva’s large–scale takeover of educational institutions”. The report titled Right in action showed how this was then a “little–known but major achievement of the Kalyan Singh government in U.P.” In September 1998, the Kalyan Singh government introduced a unique policy initiative in the area of state education called the “kulp yojana”. This was a compulsory initiative to link every single state– run school in the state to the RSS shakha. The brainchild of the  UP state education minister, Narendra Kumar Singh Gaur, this scheme was made compulsory for all primary schools in the state. It was, according to the government circular, aimed at the “moral and physical development of the child.” Through it, schools have been directed, especially in rural areas, to involve the RSS  pracharak in ‘naitik shiksha’ (moral education), SabrangIndia had then reported. “The aim of the scheme is to orient all state–run schools in UP along the lines of the RSS–run Saraswati Shishu and Bal Vidya mandirs. While announcing the scheme in Uttar Pradesh, the minister said that kulp was being introduced to “enhance the qualitative standard of education” in schools and to ensure that “teachers are an intermediary between school, family and society”. 

Related:

Poll violence, attacks on Dalits, Muslims: What is happening in UP?
Serial hate crimes against Muslims spiral, first MP, now Rajasthan
Controversial comments on Taliban draw ire

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A team from Republic TV was involved in an altercation with students at Aligarh Muslim University in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, on Tuesday, February 12, per multiple media reports.

The Indian Express reported that students “accused” the Republic TV crew of “shooting on campus without permission” and making an objectionable remark regarding the university. AMU student Sharjeel Usmani posted the following on Facebook: “Just now: Arnab’s Republic TV in AMU was reporting live that ‘we’re standing in the university of terrorists’. Students tried to intervene and the reporters started abusing the students. One of the cameramen manhandled with the students, calling us all terrorist. I tried intervening and he attacked me with his pen. Students have shown them their way out of the varsity campus.’We are not going to be intimidated by terrorist’, is what their reporter said.”

AMUSU president Salman Imtiaz told The Quint, “We were holding a meeting today. The reporters from Republic TV called me and said that I get them entry into the campus. I clearly told them that they will need permission from the administration. They still entered without any permission. Later, we gave them an interview about the meeting before it began. They should have left after that as they did not have permission. They then began doing their bulletin there and said things like ‘today we are on a land of terrorists,’ and so on. The students then intervened and asked them not to say such things. The female reporter started threatening them in return,” adding, “All this was planned for a pre-planned propaganda. There are some people who want to create nuisance on the campus. If we wanted to create ruckus, we would not have given them an interview in the first place. There are some BJP-RSS goons on the campus who want to create a communal atmosphere on the campus”.

Sabrang received a video of Imtiaz talking to reporters, where he accused the BJP and RSS–naming Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah–of making efforts to break Hindu-Muslim unity at AMU. He alleged that, on Tuesday, goons sent by them openly carried pistols and fired at students and the administration. He questioned why there was a problem with the AMUSU holding an event aimed at empowering those who have been oppressed and marginalised. He alleged that the goons from the BJP and RSS, naming Ajay Singh and Aman Sharma had the sole aim of splintering Hindu-Muslim unity, and called for them to be charged under the National Security Act (NSA), saying that this was a national security matter, based on their aim to break down communal harmony. He also alleged that the Republic TV team had come to the AMU campus at Ajay Singh’s behest. (this is a paraphrasal of statements made in the video, which can be viewed below):

Addl SP of Aligarh Ashutosh Dwivedi verified to Janta Ka Reporter that there was an altercation between the Republic TV team and AMU students that led to their camera being damaged. He said, “AMU was organising an event inside the campus and Republic TV was keen to broadcast that even live. But the university administration and students did not give them permission to do so. But, the Republic TV crew insisted and decided to broadcast the event live. This led to a minor scuffle between them.” According to Dwivedi, broadcasting from AMU’s campus is barred unless permission is obtained.

Sharjeel Usmani, who had been posting updates on the situation at AMU on Facebook, reported on the altercation between the Republic TV team and AMU students, saying that the Republic TV crew refused to leave after repeated requests, and extensively outlined the details of the incident. He noted that “What happened outside the varsity gate was a completely different issue,” explaining that he heard that Ajay Singh Thakur was marching towards the varsity gate with members of the BJP. He said, “…we got to know that Ajay Singh Thakur (Aligarh MLA’s grandson) alongwith members of BJP were marching towards varsity gate to stop a meeting in which they believe Asaduddin Owaisi was present. The whole Asaduddin Owaisi thing was going on in local media for a couple of days, although Owaisi was never invited to the meeting. It started with Ajay Singh’s remark published in a local Hindi newspaper which said, ‘Owaisi jaiso ko Aligarh me nahi ghusne denge’ which was followed by similar remarks from Hindu Mahasabha, Bhartiya Janta Kisan Mahasabhia, local BJP leaders. When the BJP members reached the campus gate, Union members and students were already present there to stop them. One of the BJP goon fired bullet at union secretary Huzaifa Amir. The students went violent and burnt his bike. The BJP guys left for nearby market (Dodhpur) which a Muslim majority area and forced people to close down their shops. Later they went to the nearest police station and started demanding arrest of the students. The students on the other sat at the varsity gate to protest against the BJP guys demanding their arrest. The Republic team was their all the time reporting the series of events that unfolded. The police was there and did nothing. I still have no idea what was Republic doing there, unless they knew that BJP guys will come to create violence. That is all I know.” His lengthy Facebook post recounting the incidents may be read here. 

Later,  after midnight, Usmani posted photographs of the university’s Bab e Syed gate, depicting students gathered and demonstrating.

Credit: Sharjeel Usmani

He also reported that Mohd Arif Khan, an MA student studying political science, had been attacked near Chungi gate, saying that his injuries suggested that Khan was beaten with a rod and bats. 

Jan Patr reported that an FIR has been registered against 14 AMU students, including AMUSU president Salman Imtiaz. They have been charged under Indian Penal Code sections 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon), 392 (robbery), 307 (attempt to murder), 322 (voluntarily causing hurt), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), 124A (sedition), 153A (Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony), and 153B (Imputations, assertions prejudicial to national-integration), according to Jan Patra, which noted that, on the other hand, no action was taken on the complaint that the students had filed.

Meanwhile, Republic said that its crew was attacked on AMU’s campus, alleging that despite the police being present, university staff and students “snatched and destroyed equipment…burnt the camera,” and that other reporters attempting to film the incident “were also attacked.” Legal correspondent Nalini Sharma was one of the two Republic TV reporters present. She tweeted extensively, saying that she had been reporting on a story unrelated to AMU “when the students began to heckle and threaten us.” In her account, Sharma said the Republic team was “physically pushed, verbally abused and harassed,” and that their camera was broken. She categorically denied that reporters called AMU students “terrorists”. 

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It was on 30th January, 1947 when MK Gandhi was gunned down by the Hindu fanatic and member of the RSS Nathuram Godse at Birla House, Delhi. Soon after the death of Gandhiji, in a letter to Golwalkar dated 11th September, 1948 Sardar Patel the then home minister of India pointed out “Opposition turned more severe, when the RSS men expressed joy and distributed sweets after Gandhi’s death.” What does this indicate? And why was RSS so happy that it had to distribute sweets after the killing of Gandhi?

In a letter dated 14th March, 1948, Dr. Rajendra Prasad wrote to Sardar Patel:
“I am told that RSS people have a plan of creating trouble. They have got a number of men dressed as Muslims and looking like Muslims who are to create trouble with the Hindus by attacking them and thus inciting the Hindus. Similarly, there will be some Hindus among them who will attack Muslims and thus incite Muslims. The result of this kind of trouble amongst the Hindus and Muslims will be to create conflagration.”

Among RSS’s ideological forefathers the so called ‘Guru’ Golwalkar occupies a big space, in his book ‘Bunch Of Thoughts’ M. S. Golwalkar spits out venom in the following words:
“Even to this day there are so many who say, ‘now there is no Muslim problem at all. All those riotous elements who supported Pakistan have gone away once for all. The remaining Muslims are devoted to our country. After all, they have no other place to go and they are bound to remain loyal’… It would be suicidal to delude ourselves into believing that they have turned patriots overnight after the creation of Pakistan on the contrary, the Muslim menace has increased a hundredfold by the creation of Pakistan which has become a springboard for all their future aggressive designs on our country.”

How the narrative for Indian Muslims having nexus with Pakistan has come to fore in contemporary times we need to look back of how virulent this notion was treatisised by Golwalkar in his book, “…within the country there are so many Pakistans’… The conclusion is that, in practically every place, there are Muslims who are in constant touch with Pakistan over transmitter…”

There are some serious questions that need to be answered; it is a deep travesty for our country that the heads of incumbent dispensation are members of the same traitor organization.

RSS, which was responsible for pre and post-independence rioting, conspiring and spreading communal hatred, paradoxically in contemporary India claims itself to be nationalist and seek others patriotism for the nation. After seventy years of Independence it is bemoaning to see that elected BJP MPs like Sakshi Maharaj demands to declare Nathuram Godse as a national patriot.

Now coming to the recent row, it is highly bemoaning to see morons and ignorants like Aamir Rasheedi demand opening an RSS shakha in AMU. The students and faculties of Aligarh Muslim University are much educated and well aware of the fact of how RSS worked as puppets of the British and is responsible for spreading hatred, violence, communal rioting, pogroms, carnages and moreover killing of Gandhi. We the students of AMU will not let a traitor organization like RSS into the varsity’s campus and strictly warn people like Rasheedi to keep their idiotic ideas outside. AMU is a diverse, inclusive, plural and democratic institution of whose character is totally hostile to the ideology of the Sangh. Do not dare even to keep an evil eye on AMU.

This article was first published on TwoCircles.net.
 

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The Vice Chancellor, AMU, Tariq Mansoor has immediately cancelled the letter advising the History department of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) from appointing controversial RSS man, Makhan Lal as adjunct professor to the history department of the university. Yesterday, Sabrangindia had broken the story of the designs of the Modi regime to impose a whole set of professors with hardline Hindutva leanings on the AMU. It is now learned that it is not just AMU but several central universities have received a ‘list’ of names of academics-cum-Hindutva-ideologues who ‘have been directed’ to be appointed to social science departments of central universities.

 
Today, the Vice Chancellor has cancelled the appointment of Makhan Lal and clarified that it was not he, but in-charge of the AMU, Imtiaz Hasnain who had through a formal letter issued to the history department, directed the Chairman, Department of History to go ahead with the appointment. The letter caused a great deal of discussion and heat yesterday, especially the fact that the normal rule and guidelines had not been followed, in making the appointment. The VC thereafter has clarified today that the letter stands withdrawn and the appointment, not formally made, stands cancelled.
 
Sabrangindia has spoken to a cross section of professors, especially from the social sciences department. It is  learnt that the University Grants Commission (UGC) sent a list of “academics” from the social sciences who should be appointed to various departments. Journalist and Hindutva ideologue, SwapanDasgupta is one of the names also recommended in this controversial list, suggested to be appointed to the political science department. This ‘list’ has been sent to not just AMU but several other Central Universities as well, it is learned.
 
The probable appointment of Dasgupta was also discussed in the Political Science department yesterday and stiff resistance was put up by several faculty members after which the decision, at least as of now, not to appoint him, has been taken.

Also Read : Controversial RSS Prof Makhan Lal appointed to History Dept at AMU
 
 

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Newly appointed AMU VC, Tariq Mansoor has appointed Dr.Makhan Lal, the Sangh Parivar pointsman for re-writing history books, as Adjunct Professor in the Department of History, sources told Sabrangindia.

 

Students had then lodged a complaint with the Hauz Khas police station and announced that they would not attend any class till the historian was removed from the Institute.

Denying the allegation, Mr. Makhan Lal said his students had been misguided into a political game. “I have been in academics for nearly 27 years. Never in my life have I been accused of such charges. I have always upheld the dignity of a teacher’s job and acted as a father figure for students. Why the students resorted to this is a mystery, but I will come out with the truth,” he had asserted.

Students had then said that they had to silently suffer the advances made by the director but decided to put their foot down after one of their teachers, Anand Burdhan, was asked to resign for inefficiency. According to the students,  “He happen(ed) to be the only one to take our(their) classes properly and provide us(them) with practical knowledge. Most of the other teachers teach us (them) straight from photocopied books. Many good teachers were made to leave the Institute earlier too because they did not subscribe to the thoughts of the director,” said students at the time.

There was also resentment among students about the quality of education being offered at the Institute that was affliated to Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, the Institute was then about three years old. Students allege that they were not allowed to refer to Romila Thapar or any other author that the director believes is inclined to the Left. One of the teachers even went to the extent of stating that the demolition of the Babri Masjid was justified. 

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