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From A Jamia Alumnus To BJP’s Contractors – Leave Our University Alone!

 MahtabNama

 

 February 6, 2015

 

 Politics

By Mahtab Alam:

Last week, a friend from Jamia Millia Islamia sent a text message asking “Muslim Youth For India kya organization hai (What organization is this, Muslim Youth For India)?”, “Pahli baar suna hai (I have heard the name for the first time)”. Indeed, I was hearing the name for the first time. An invitation card floating on the internet showed that this ‘organisation’ was organizing a national symposium on “Educating & Mainstreaming of Indian Muslims” in association with Jamia Millia Islamia on 2nd of February. The chief guest was HRD Minister Smriti Zubin Irani, while Narendra Modi’s close aide and newly appointed Chancellor of Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU), Zafar Sareshwala, was going to be the guest of honour. Among the prominent speakers were the Vice Chancellor of Jamia, Dr. Talat Ahmad, Prof. Akhtarul Wasey, and Prof. Mujtaba Khan. Among the lesser-known names were one Akhtar Ali Farooqui, Dr. Midhat Hussain, Tanweer Ahmed and Asifa Khan. Nonetheless, they were projected in a way as if they were the ‘who’s who’ of the Indian Muslim community, if not all of India.

As a former student of Jamia, I find this to be one of the rarest (and lowest) moments in Jamia’s history. I don’t remember any comparable situation – where the University officials in collaborations with some outsiders of shady background had rolled out a red carpet to please political people, and that too those whose politics is based entirely on hate.

The crowning glory of the event was the comparison drawn between the country’s first education minister, the great leader of freedom struggle, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, and the current HRD Minister, by Prof. Akhtarul Wasey. That the comparison was bizarre and untenable was not lost on anyone. After all, these crude forms of chaploosi aren’t such a big deal if they can help you to become the vice chancellor of some university, or get some favours from the sarkaar – or shall we say saheb? But never before has a senior professor of the university brought such disrepute to Jamia as Prof. Mujtaba Khan managed with his inappropriate and sexist shayari replete with ‘haseen’ and ‘mehfil’ while addressing the HRD Minister.

The response was acidic and swift as she cut short his speech, asking him to focus on introducing Sareshwala, and in her speech also reprimanded him for using such words to address a woman. As someone with deep emotional attachment to Jamia, I hang my head in shame.

All hail Zafar Shareshwala

While some in the audience may have cringed at the good reputation of the university being tattered, it was a perfect day for Zafar Sareshwala. Every speaker made a point to do his qasida khwani (read extreme form of eulogizing). My friend and journalist M Reyaz puts it vividly –“Zafar Sareshwala, who was the Guest of Honour, appeared to be the star of the programme as none of the speakers forgot to mention his name and eulogised him several times, as he smiled and nodded every time his name was taken.” Dr. Midhat Hussain, one of the organisers associated with Muslim Youth For India (MYFI) thanked Sareshwala for his so-called efforts for the community development. He in fact went on to ‘innocently’ announce that, “When Modi ji was still a CM of Gujarat but was nominated the PM candidate of BJP, with the help of Zafar Bhai, we went to meet him.” Interestingly, this was the same person who was talking about “Political Slavery of Indian Muslims” in an event organized by another dubious outfit, United Muslim Front, on 7th November 2013 at India Islamic Centre (A short video of the event can be seenhere).

A brief history of ‘Muslim Youth For India‘

Coming to the obvious, what is this organization, Muslim Youth For India? While most of us had never heard of it before, a cursory glance at the profiles and background of the people behind it put things in perspective. Let’s start with Dr. Midhat Hussain. He (though with a different hat ‘Muslims For National Integration’) was one the lead speakers, along with Zafar Sareshwala and some junior lackeys, at the launch of the propaganda book ‘Modi, Muslims & Media Voices from Narendra Modi’s Gujarat’, written by Narendra Modi’s cheerleader Madhu Purnima Kishwar. Not only that, a news story before the general elections quotes him on his change of heart after meeting Modi in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. “We’ll be going from door to door, meeting person to person and telling them how Modiji is more reasonable and good for the community than the rest,” he told a reporter. Other members with identical sentiments were also quoted in the news report. These members, also mentioned in the Jamia invite as key organisers, vouched for Modi’s “sincerity” and desire to work for Muslims.

And who is Asifa Khan, another star speaker at the symposium? The invite described her as a“noted political analyst”. Her Wikipedia page though introduces her as a BJP leader. “Asifa Khan is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). She has emerged as a prominent Muslim face of BJP. She is now considered amongst the very close persons to the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi and also as the leading and emerging face of Muslims in the party. She represents and defends the BJP as well as put forward the views of the party on print and electronic media and also on leading TV channels.”

Similarly, another speaker Tanweer Ahmad was the Chairman of the Hajj Committee during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government and a member of national executive committee of BJP.

The movers and shakers of ‘Muslim Youth For India’ are clearly a front of BJP/Modi, assigned with the task of making inroads into the Muslim community. Can we cry foul at a political party trying to reach out to a community, even if the same has hitherto been suspicious in its politics? Hardly. However, the party’s representatives must first stop pretending to be leaders of the community. A recent meeting in Batla House held by BJP’s minority cell could barely attract 18 students, and these too remained skeptical of the party. Sareshwala’s show required students of Jamia School and University to fill up the Jamia auditorium.

If these TV friendly socialites, about-to-retire professors, eyeing some sarkari posts and other sundry thekedaars want to become the leaders of the community, they must communicate the grievances, anxieties and demands of the community to the political leadership, instead of being the goodwill ambassadors of a party that goes about spreading hate and venom in the name of love jihad, conversions, ghar wapsi, etc. Why was ‘ghar wapsi’ not uttered a single time by any of the so-called stellar Muslim leadership present at Jamia? Is it not the Sangh Parivar’s idea of mainstreaming Muslims?

To those who wish to curry favours with Modi and his government, and to contractors assigned the tough task of bringing over Muslims to BJP’s side, I say, all the best, but please leave our university alone.

Mahtab Alam is a civil rights activist and writer. He studied at Jamia Millia Islamia between 2001-2008. His twitter handle is @MahtabNama

A Welcome Challenge - By Najeeb Jung - The Times of India + Comments by Ghulam Muhammed

Both support and the opposition of Jamia's reconfirmation of its Minority Status, is politically motivated. In politics, nothing is permanent. Sixty Four years' Brahmin rule had a field day by demonizing Indian Muslims. The flux in the electoral game plans, threatens the citadels of oligarchic rule. Muslim should beware of the sleight of hand trickery that will help the oligarchy consolidate its stranglehold, without any cost to them in having to give any empowerment to Muslims. Muslims are still the beggars and have not cultivated the leverages to demand their legitimate share in the governance of their country. This step by step approach to appease Muslims in frivolous ways, without giving their rightful dues, is another fraud by the ruling oligarchy and must be seen by Muslims as such.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai




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A Welcome Challenge

Najeeb Jung | Mar 17, 2011, 12.00am IST

Comments

Tags:minority institution|Jamia

The order of the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions declaring the Jamia Millia Islamia a 'minority' institution has generated considerable comment. Since different viewpoints have been stated, the issue needs to be objectively evaluated, inclusive of the ideological arguments.

The Jamia Millia Islamia was formed in 1920, at the behest of Gandhi, as a counter to the increasing sense of alienation among a section of Muslims. A group of nationalist Muslim leaders including Maulana Mahmudul Hasan, Maulana Mohamed Ali, M A Ansari, Hakim Ajmal Khan and Abdul Majeed Khwaja brought in all their resources to form Jamia. Others like Zakir Hussain, Prof Mujeeb and Prof Abid Hussain were to follow and devote their lives to the cause of education, in particular of Muslims, who were way behind other communities.

Registered initially as a society, Jamia became a deemed university in 1962. All these years it retained its status as a minority institution. In 1988, it became a central university by which time it had established its major faculties and departments including engineering, education, history, social work, fine arts, natural sciences, and its famous mass communication school. At that time it had roughly 50% Muslim students. Today, 23 years after becoming a central university, it still has roughly the same number of Muslim students.

Therefore, it is firstly important to grasp that the ruling does not change anything: it formalises the status quo. In an educational context where Muslims are worryingly under-represented, Jamia has historically provided a path to secular higher education to thousands of young, underprivileged provincial Muslims who receive their school education in the traditional style, in maktabs and madrassas. It has also made singular contribution to the education of Muslim girls in whose case parents would be reluctant to send them elsewhere. Today, one of the glorious achievements of the university is that within its campus one frequently sees groups where girls in hijab mix easily with all others.

But then since Jamia is indeed having 50% or more Muslims, why declare it a minority institution? Two things stand out here. First, over the last 90 years Muslims have had a sense of ownership and a fierce attachment with Jamia. They believe it is an institution of higher learning set up by their forefathers, to further in essence the cause of Muslim education, and declaring it a minority institution

However, despite this, there are reasonable arguments, focussing on the bad consequences that might follow from minority status. The most significant is that the minimum 50% reservation that minority status permits will be exceeded and this will lead to Jamia becoming a Muslim ghetto. It is further argued that once Jamia becomes a minority institution, its students will be shunned in the job market because their degrees, and diplomas, fairly or unfairly, will have been devalued by its reputation as a 'Muslim' institution.

Two points need to be made here. All minority institutions, including the Vellore Medical College and St Stephen's College, are governed by the same rules of admission. These institutions continue to be beacons of excellence despite the fact that they can theoretically take more than 50% of their students from the Christian community. Every educational institution regardless of whether it is a minority institution or not faces a choice: does it want to recruit the best students under the rules that govern it or will it misuse the rules for the sake of patronage, nepotism or communalism?

Jamia, being an older institution than most in north India, has faced this choice for nearly a hundred years, in good times and bad, and has consistently made the right decision. The fact that at all times in its history it retained Muslim student numbers to around 50% is indicative of this maturity. There is no reason to believe this will change now.

It is also important to understand that Jamia is a recipient of public money, it has a duty to demonstrate that this money is scrupulously spent and that with the changed circumstance comes far greater responsibility. It will, therefore, have to commit itself to unprecedented levels of transparency, submitting its admission processes to national testing. Open competition with published merit lists for minority and non-minority students will shine daylight on the processes by which students are admitted.

At the same time, it will demonstrate that a commitment to the welfare of an underprivileged community can be combined with a commitment to openness, fairness and excellence. Better still, if Jamia could frame rules that part of that 50% reserved for Muslims becomes available to Muslim women and the backward Muslim community, it would manage a trifecta: pluralism, social justice and gender equality.

While this is a huge affirmative action on the part of the government that the Muslim community must accept with grace and gratitude, i believe the government has put an onus on the Muslims to prove that they can look beyond common perceptions of ghettoisation, fundamentalism and so on and understand that imbedded in this initiative is the challenge to be tested at the altar of competence, professionalism and, above all, commitment to fierce nationalism and secularism that has been the bedrock of Jamia for the past 90 years.
 The writer, a former civil servant, is the vice-chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia.

Copyright © 2011 Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All rights reserved. For reprint rights: Times Syndication Service