AMU: Institution of Learning or Intellectual Ghetto? | M.R. Narayan Swamy

BOOK REVIEW

AMU: Institution of Learning or Identity
by Anil Maheshwari and Arjun Maheshwari

Ink/Occam
Pages: xvii + 431; Price: Rs 899

Anil Maheshwari, the lead author I know, is as secular an Indian as one can be. The book recognises, and rightly so, how the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) has come under repeated and unfair attacks from the Hindu Right because of its Islamic character. The authors are against the Modi government’s attempt to mess around with the university’s autonomy. And this is precisely why this book is deeply troubling due to its frank assessment of the way what was meant to be an exceptional institution of higher learning has come to be dominated by a madrassa mentality.

If you think the Maheshwaris are being unduly harsh, then pay heed to other voices of reason. In his comment on the book, respected Pakistani columnist Pervez Hoodbhoy says the AMU has in recent decades veered towards becoming a Muslim (intellectual) ghetto. Ather Farouqui, general secretary of Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu, insists that the university has become a sanctuary for backward-looking Muslim leadership. The Maheshwaris peel off AMU layer by layer since its birth in this seminal work to reveal why the university is today floundering.

Sir Syed Ahmad Khan founded and conceived of AMU as a training ground for leadership of the Muslim community in the best values of Western traditions. He did not envisage a religious university. His experiment later came to be called the Aligarh movement. But unscrupulous elements among Muslims subverted his idea, even much before India’s independence. In the 1940s, the demand for Pakistan gripped AMU, making Mohammed Ali Jinnah a hero. The long-term result? A religious question masquerading as an academic one has come to dominate the university, failing to prepare its students from taking a quantum jump in modern secular India (despite the recent challenges).

Successive vice chancellors have paid a heavy price while trying to maintain academic discipline, particularly after India’s independence, and peace. Some succeeded to some extent; some were a miserable failure. The Maheshwaris detail the sordid happenings in the institution that can shock and numb anyone.

The book says that during the reign of many VCs, rules were flouted flagrantly, merit lists for admission were tampered with, and corrupt practices were adopted to appease sections of politician-teachers. Changes in the structure of courses and examinations to suit vested interests – which were aplenty — were a little too frequent, even arbitrary. The laxity in examination rules led to falling standards. Favouritism and nepotism were rife on the campus. Don’t be surprised that most students suffer from poor knowledge of English.

Most VCs did come with ideas and plans to improve the functioning of AMU but soon got disillusioned. One such VC, Syed Hashim Ali, rued: “The vested interests within the university have always tried to keep (AMU) unstable. From Zakir Hussain till today, there was not a single VC in whose term there was peace throughout.” Hashim Ali was clear that academic incompetence was behind all the troubles.

Zakir Hussain became unpopular as VC for reducing Moharram holidays from 10 to 2 and making Sunday the weekly off instead of Friday. No wonder, he admitted in his farewell speech that he had lost hope of achieving anything worthwhile in the university. Many others came to the same conclusion.

Another VC, Abdul Aleem, was forced to walk from his office to his residence barefoot before a hostile crowd of more than 5,000 students who booed and abused him. A student armed with a knife pounced on VC Ali Yavar Jang, a staunch nationalist, seeking his resignation. Jang earlier had to run for his life when rampaging students entered a hall where a meeting was in progress. He was attacked so badly with an iron rod by a student that he required 30 stiches on his head. Then education minister M.C. Chagla received hundreds of letters threatening him with death for allegedly interfering in AMU’s affairs.

In January 1981, the office of VC Saiyid Hamid was mobbed by students carrying knives and country-made revolvers. They were protesting against Irfan Habib, who was earlier attacked by hockey-wielding hooligans. (It is another matter that a small section of Hindu faculty and students allied to the RSS was against Habib for his known Left sympathies.) A caretaker vice chancellor was hospitalised for a week in Delhi after a goon thrust his revolver on his chest and forced him to admit his son. By the time P.K. Abdul Aziz became the 21st VC in 2017, there was complete breakdown of law; everyone was being constantly threatened with assault and humiliation.

Sections of male students were a pressure group in AMU, the Maheshwaris contend. Fights among student groups were common. Aligarh harboured a section of students who were communal and fanatic. The Students Islamic Movement of India told a VC in writing: “We want that every teacher of the university should be loyal to the Islamic faith and community.” This was Muslim communalism at its worst.

There was also an ultra-radical section among students. With 15,000 boarders, some of who were in reality criminals, student unrest was a perennial problem. Hostel rooms were at times occupied by thugs. Half a dozen students have been murdered. One frustrated VC demanded the posting of the CRPF on the campus. Some VCs acted against undesirable elements among students, expelling some and booking some under the National Security Act.

I.D. Pant of the Geology Department resigned in protest after he was threatened in 1980 by Manzar Safi, a notorious character caught cheating in examination; Safi boasted that he had sent 20 Hindus to hell and he would not mind adding a 21st to the list. In 1995, after losing about 100 acres of illegally occupied land to the authorities, land grabbers murdered Rajiv Sharma, an innocent lecturer in the Department of History. A professor, Mohammad Shabbir, was abducted, taken to a village, assaulted and threatened to soften his stand vis-à-vis a student caught using unfair means in an exam. In 1998, the house of Registrar H.A.S. Jafri was burnt by miscreants.

In 1994, a FIR was lodged that 149 students had secured admission to various courses based on illegally obtained admission cards. Believe it or not, the students were allowed to continue after being fined Rs 1,000 each! Shia-Sunni conflict also played out in AMU. And teacher politicians, according to the book, brazenly encouraged student groups to turn against VCs they did not like.

The book argues that the perennial fight over the minority character of AMU gave a virtual license for everything, good or bad. A frustrated former VC, Badruddin Tyabji, commented: “What is the minority here? What is the character? If you are aware, then spell it out and say that it is an Islamic University. But it is a composite university. How can it be called a minority university?” Former VC M.M. Farooqui insisted: “The AMU has a minority character but was not a minority institution.” Saiyid Hamid admitted that an atmosphere of general discontent always prevailed in the AMU campus, to the detriment of academics.

Most fights in AMU have been over non-academic issues, the authors say. At the heart of the problem was the unending tussle between competing Muslim groups to control the university. Almost all VCs found it difficult to defeat an entrenched patronage system that shunned merit. The competing groups cornered power and had a hand in appointments and promotions, seriously vitiating the atmosphere.

There was a time when one-third of students and one-fourth of teachers in AMU were non-Muslims. Now 90 percent at Muslims. The non-Muslim teachers are weeded out during recruitment, says the book. The AMU now has 22,000 students, including some 5,000 females (with their own problems), and 1,400 teachers spread over 10 departments.

After independence, an audit report alleged embezzlement, defalcation, misappropriation and loss of or tampering with records. A later official inquiry uncovered that 61 family members of the staff were appointed in the university. Shockingly, at one point, as many as 93 members of one family were employed in different capacities! Some professors from different faculties who were on long leave and serving in the Middle East didn’t show up in AMU even after the expiry of their sanctioned leave. In 2020, the AMU moved against 97 employees for furnishing fake documents to get jobs. Twenty-seven non-teaching employees were sacked. The pension of 32 who worked till retirement with fake papers were frozen.

The book gives the distinct impression that trouble and AMU go hand in hand. But whatever is revealed here is just a sampling. The Maheshwaris say anyone making even mildly unpleasant remarks about AMU is accused of bias and seen as ill disposed towards Muslims. A sizeable section of the university community, they say, remains preoccupied with a distinctive Muslim identity. “The traditionalists refuse to realise that the separation of religion from state is desirable for all communities, particularly minorities.”

This is a powerful book. Its added strength is that it is eminently readable and gripping.