Author: Swapan Dasgupta
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: September 28, 2008
It is the avowed intention of "good politics"
to separate the individual from the issue. Unfortunately, despite my best
endeavours I have been unable to disentangle Professor Mushirul Hasan, the
harried vice-chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia, from the storm that has engulfed
India's Muslims.
Never mind what the more uninformed critics
said, Hasan didn't quite fit the stereotype of the pained Muslim who got places
by wilfully carrying a monumental chip on his shoulder. His personal faith
was always subordinate to his reputation as an accomplished historian and
a man of letters. Even as a "Muslim" intellectual he was different
from both the radical Marxists and the Islamic conservatives. He was the archetypal
Congress Muslim in the best sense of the term: Liberal, Westernised, progressive
without being flamboyantly trendy and, predictably, very Nehruvian. Like many
true Nehruvians whose convictions were rooted in both aesthetics and class,
Hasan probably nurtured a disdain for both the ghetto and the suicide bomber.
Like many liberals who now take their cue from the American campuses, he blended
a critique of the so-called Bush doctrine with a distaste of the robust nationalism
of the Right.
There is, of course, another more practical
facet to this man of letters. Over the years, Hasan has become a feature of
the intellectual pantheon of a very beleaguered Nehruvian establishment. This
has made him more sensitive to political cross-currents and fuelled the belief
that the only fight worth fighting these days is against the grand ideological
project of the Hindu Right. For Hasan, the hosting of Sahmat exhibition of
MF Hussain's prints and the naming of a path in the Jamia campus after HRD
Minister Arjun Singh is an aspect of a political grandstanding.
It is this new-found public-spiritedness that
has led Hasan to the centre of an extremely unfortunate controversy centred
on terrorism. This is not because the controversy has arisen in the first
place but because the vice-chancellor has decided to change tack from being
a man of letters to becoming the unlikely voice of the qasba.
It is not novel for either students or teachers
to be engulfed in issues that have little bearing on the campus. If a student
is picked up by the police for, say a credit card fraud or something more
violent, it is not incumbent on the part of the institution to play father
to the errant child -- although individual teachers can and should play such
a role. The principle isn't any different for the two Jamia students held
on terrorism-related offences by Delhi Police. The charges are serious and
relate to the mass murder of innocent citizens, an armed encounter in which
a policeman died and assaults on the sovereignty of India. These, presumably,
are offences that are not curriculum-related, unless new-fangled courses on
Human Rights now include practicals on bomb-making.
It is conceivable that there are people in
the vicinity of the Jamia campus who believe that the students have been unfairly
targeted by a vengeful police. It is equally likely that there are others
who sympathise with the Indian Mujahedeen's jihad and are piggybacking on
the "unfair arrest" theory to create a gulf between Muslims and
India. These are political issues that both the Government and civil society
have to confront. In offering legal assistance to the arrested from official
funds, Hasan wasn't simply upholding the inalienable right of every citizen
to get legal assistance -- a right statutorily guaranteed and needs no intervention
from Jamia Millia. He was putting the full weight of a public institution
behind the accused. In effect, he was equating the institution with those
charged with terrorism. The conflict between "town" and "gown"
is an intractable problem that has plagued academia. In obliterating the distinction
between the mood of neighbouring Jamia Nagar and the aloofness of Jamia Millia
Islamia, Hasan has sullied the relationship between an academic institution
and the nation. His combative speech to the students on September 24 is a
case in point. According to the report in Times of India (which to my knowledge
hasn't been contradicted), Hasan urged students to not be defensive about
the arrest of two colleagues. "We owe no explanation to anyone except
ourselves and to our faith that unambiguously eschews violence." Of course,
he added by way of a postscript that "Our commitment is to the rule of
law and the Indian Constitution."
What Hasan has purportedly said is preposterous.
He has suggested that a publicly funded institution isn't accountable to anyone
but the Jamia community and "our faith". I have no theological expertise
to pronounce a judgment on whether this faith "unambiguously eschews
violence". It is, at best, a contested assertion. It is also not my case
that a religious institution cannot exist. But such an institution cannot
be run on public funds. The Constitution forbids it. Either Jamia is a Central
University or an institution answerable primarily to "our faith".
Hasan obviously feels it is the latter.
What this incident tells us is disturbing.
It suggests that a traditional liberal like Hasan no longer feels the need
to maintain a healthy detachment between a rarefied institution and the radicalisation
of Indian Muslims. Ironically, it was a willingness to swim against the tide
of community consensus that distinguished an earlier generation of nationalist
Muslims such as Maulana Azad and Zakir Hussain from the well-bred Liaquat
Ali Khans and Khaliquzzamans. In those days, the choice was between a united
India and Pakistan; today, it is between democracy and terrorism. If Hasan
makes a wrong choice out of personal choice it is a footnote; it is a commentary
on his fickleness. If, however, he is moved by community pressure it is a
sure sign that the community is totally out of tune with the rest of India.