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With interest groups demanding minority status for Jamia Millia Islamia, will sectarian politics take over the university's academic culture? 
Sadiq Naqvi Delhi

"Jamia is a movement and declaring it a minority institution would be the anti-thesis of the basic tenets of why Jamia was established in the first place," said Prof MS Bhatt, Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) University. "It was an experiment at nation-building wherein a parallel system of education - nai taleem - aiming at an amalgamation of modern and traditional thoughts was devised to instill values of enlightenment, secularism and pluralism. Any move to reverse this character of JMI would be of great disrespect to the people who gave their life for its creation," he urged.

Recently, in a controversial move, former human resource development minister Arjun Singh wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh saying that one of the Union ministers is patronising divisive forces in this context. JMI seems to have become a battleground for all eyeing the Muslim vote bank. This particular Union minister with linkages in UP and some sections of the Muslim political elite feel left out in an institution whose founders include members of the minister's family. Even in the early 1990s, this minister was accused of having connived with fundamentalist forces, fomenting disturbances in the university campus. The then pro-vice chancellor of JMI, Mushirul Hasan, was hounded by some students for not wanting a ban on Satanic Verses.  

In a dharna in Delhi on March 15, Muslim organisations like Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, All India Milli Council, Students Islamic Organisation, and JMI teachers' and administrative staff bodies put up a united front in demanding minority status for JMI. This demand dates back to 1988, when JMI was declared a central university. What really did not augur well with the JMI staff was the Delhi High Court ruling of 1997, which quashed 10 per cent reservation for wards of JMI employees. A five per cent reservation for students from Urdu background was also scrapped. Many strikes followed and the executive council of the JMI passed a resolution asking for minority status.

In 2002, the Supreme Court delivered the judgment in the TMA Pai case wherein it was stated that any minority institution does not cease to be so the moment financial assistance from the government is received. This strengthened the demand rooted in Article 30 of the Constitution that gives rights to minorities to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice. "This is a right granted to us by the Constitution of this country. Don't snatch it away," said Tariq Siddiqui, standing counsel in the case pending in the High Court.

The moment of truth came with passage of the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act 2006 and a subsequent announcement by the then VC, Mushirul Hasan, in his convocation address that JMI would be the first university to implement reservation for OBCs. It meant that it was a tacit denial of JMI's minority institution status. This angered the academic community, because it was widely perceived that Hasan had reportedly filled many teaching positions with his 'favourites', while taking advantage of the special provisions in the JMI Act. Hasan refused to comment. "I'm on leave and I have nothing to say on Jamia," he told Hardnews.