Efforts to systematically eliminate Muslim identity, dismissing and seeking to erase India’s rich Muslim culture, language, history, and contributions are central to the campaign to scrap the minority status of the Aligarh Muslim University.
DR SAMINA SALIM | Clarion India
BETWEEN an event and a response, there is a space; in that space resides our power as it helps us decide our position which eventually guides us to a clear path. We can either abandon the space by staying indifferent filling the space with a vacuum or use it to formulate our position and our response. This becomes even more critical if the event which necessitates our response is unfair, and wrong. Importantly, our ignoring of the unfair does not diminish or erase the event’s significance. Indifference makes the impact worse. We become a witness to the unfair whether we own it or disregard it. What is seen cannot be claimed as unseen. Whether we choose to speak about it or decide to stay silent, we are complicit and accountable either way. We are accountable for our silence as well as for our words.
The discussion on the minority character of my alma mater, the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), has been going on for some time, frequently used as a political tool caught in a protracted legal battle for the last several decades. In the present context, there is one thing which is so counter-productive in this entire debate that one cannot overlook it. When the said objective is “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikaas”, why create obstructions for an institution which is a key player in serving this very mission? Why invest resources, time, and energy in weakening its character instead of empowering its goals, which is to serve the underserved and the marginalised minority groups. AMU’s report card has proven its merits repeatedly, documenting excellence in various domains of science and technology, arts and humanities, social sciences, politics, and health, without compromising rigour and quality of its instruction or its students.
The processes — admissions, progression and graduation are all highly competitive. So why this renewed interest in scrapping the minority character instead of focusing on the institution’s improvement and development? The answer is simple. AMU stands as a beacon of Muslim identity in India. The goal is to erase that identity. The purpose is to embarrass, undermine and demoralise the entire Indian Muslim community.
The AMU minority character issue lights up every time anti-Muslim hysteria rages across the country. I had heard about agitation against the potential scrapping of AMU’s minority character back in the 1980s and later seen it happen in recent years and now at the current time, which is historically the most turbulent since India’s independence with respect to minority persecution. As multipronged approaches are working on the ground to swiftly push the country on a path to replace secular India with a theocratic Hindu nation (Hindu rashtra), thereby repudiating the country’s history as the world’s most populous democracy, criminalisation, demonisation, and marginalisation of its 200 million Indian Muslims (about 14% of the population) is at the core of this movement.
Right-wing politicians openly profess anti-Muslim rhetoric, with their followers propelling forward their divisive agenda. Efforts to systematically eliminate Muslim identity, dismissing and seeking to erase India’s rich Muslim culture, language, history, and contributions are central to this campaign.
Abrogation of Article 370, the contentious Babri Masjid verdict, the discriminatory hijab ban, the bulldozing of Muslim homes and businesses, beef ban, mob lynching, distortion of curriculum to skew Indian history to disregarding of Muslim contributions, and now renewed efforts to scrap the minority character of the AMU, are all part of the framework of the anti-Muslim design.
The timing for the move to scrap AMU’s minority character could not be more conducive for AMU-haters than now. AMU is an eyesore for right-wing fanatics whose agenda is to erase the Muslim footprint from India. The fact that AMU is the guiding light and an intellectual hub for country’s Muslim men and women is bothersome for the “hate brigade” and calculated efforts are underway to undermine and demoralise the entire Muslim community such that it is forced into oblivion.
According to the government’s position, since AMU was established by an act of parliament, it cannot a minority institution. And since it is a central university getting aid from the government, it cannot claim to be a minority institution. I am no legal expert nor a historian; I am simply a concerned AMU alumnus displeased with the Indian government’s attempts to scrap the AMU’s minority status. It takes no expert to know that Article 30(1) of the Indian Constitution allows religious and linguistic minorities to establish and administer institutions of their choice, and to also retain the right to challenge the government in the event of interventions, if any in its operations, under the provisions provided in the same article. If the Supreme Court declares AMU as not a minority institution, this will set a judicial precedent for a similar legal battle over the status of Jamia Millia Islamia, which was declared a minority institution in 2011. AMU will be just the beginning of an educational holocaust of Indian Muslims.
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Samina Salim, Ph.D., is Associate Professor, Department of Pharmacological & Pharmaceutical Sciences, Houston College of Pharmacy. She was born in Lucknow and raised in Aligarh and moved to the United States in 1999. The views expressed here are author’s own and Clarion India does not necessarily share or subscribe to them.
