Beyond scholasticism

The second existential crisis of the Aligarh Muslim University since 1947 requires the central government to respond judiciously and urgently

Syed Shahbuddin Delhi

Between 1966 and 1981, particularly after 1972, the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) was the rallying point of agitation by Muslims seeking restoration of its autonomy and the recognition of its minority character, which was taken away by the government in 1965, to be followed by the Acts of 1968 and 1976. These Acts virtually converted AMU into another central university. The alienated Muslim community resorted to mass struggle for the restoration of the AMU to the community. That chapter was closed in 1981, when the AMU Act was amended. Though not fully satisfactory, it recognised the AMU as a Muslim educational institution under Article 30 of the Constitution.

However, a legal flaw had been pushed under the carpet while amending the AMU Act in 1981 and ignored in the euphoria generated by it. In the Azeez Pasha (1968) case, the Supreme Court had concluded that its historical character notwithstanding, the AMU was "established" in 1920 not by the Muslim community but by the Act of the Central Assembly. But the Supreme Court had failed to consider that every university is "established" in the sense of being incorporated, by an act of the legislature and thus chartered to award degrees. That is why a jurist of HM Seervai's eminence called the Supreme Court judgement a "bad judgement" and two years later two sitting judges of the Supreme Court had suggested a revision of the ruling but the Supreme Court did not take notice.

Historically, from its very inception, through its progress to a college, the institution founded and established by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan was acknowledged by everyone to be a Muslim institution established and managed by the Muslim community with their donation. The AMU was incorporated in 1920 as a result of the movement launched and financed by the community. Its Muslim character was fully recognised by the government from 1921 to 1947. The university raised the levels of both education and political consciousness. During the non-cooperation movement of the 1920s, it gave birth to Jamia Millia Islamia, in the late 1930s and early 1940s, some of its faculty served as the brain trust for the Pakistan movement and some of its students became active in the Muslim League, but the university maintained its secular and nationalist traditions and its academic pursuits. Both Jawaharlal Nehru and MA Jinnah were invited by its students union to address it. On independence the AMU was targeted by the Hindu communal forces who demanded its closure, giving rise to Muslim apprehension about its survival and migration of some teachers to Pakistan. It also lost part of its hinterland. But independent India treated the AMU graciously and generously, as Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Dr Zakir Hussain desired, and the AMU has moved from one milestone to another to become one of the premier universities of the country, with a budget of Rs 200 crore, almost wholly funded by the central government.