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As an institution Jamia Millia Islamia is strange. It is perhaps the only central university of the country which has the privilege of hitting the headlines but unfortunately for the wrong reasons.
Last week too, it was in the news with the roots of the Red Fort shoot-out being traced to its campus.
When Abu Shamal, an alleged LeT militant, was shot dead by the Delhi Police in Batla House in Jamia Nagar recently, there was a hue and cry that he was a student of Jamia Millia Islamia. Though it was established that he was not a Jamia student, it also remained a fact that he moved around in the garb of a Jamia student.
Similarly, Ashfaq Ahmad was running a computer centre in Jamia area. Police arrested him and he was found to be the LeT mastermind behind the Red Fort shoot out. His computer centre had many students. But his ulterior motive, as claimed by the police sources, was to work as a conduit for the anti-national elements, executing their nefarious missions in India from across the border. Police interrogated him and it led to the killing of not only a dreaded terrorist in Srinagar but also the recovery of Pakistani make hand-grenades from the Jamia campus.
This is how the story goes on about Jamia. If the police is on the prowl of some "criminal elements", they are attacked by students. Last year, a police team was looking for one Mubarak. The rumour-mongers got into the act. The rumour that police arrested one student spread like wildfire on the campus. The police was attacked. The rest is history now, which the well-wishers of Jamia would never wish to be repeated.
Last week, an intelligence official on normal recee of the area was identified by certain anti-national elements as a stooge of the central government and was assaulted. He could barely save his life and bone. What is devastating is the fact that Jamia administration till date has not come out with one official statement on the events taking place in and around the Jamia campus in the last fortnight.
In fact, since 1988 when Jamia was accorded the central university status, it has seen more downs than ups. It hit the headlines in 1992 over the issue of banning Salman Rushdie's book titled "Satanic Verses." The problem had erupted in the wake of an "inadvertent" comment by then pro vice chancellor Prof Mushril Hassan over "Satanic Verses." Whatever he said didn't go down well with the Muslims. Rather they felt offended.
"Jamia had never before witnessed that kind of religious fanaticism or intolerance exhibited by the students. The incident was shocking, indeed," said a senior faculty member. A 7000-strong university was rather shaken from within. Prof Hassan was not allowed to enter the campus for years. The then vice chancellor Bashiruddin Ahmad had to grope in dark for the solution to the problems eating into the vitals of Jamia.
The teaching community, however, got optimistic about the future going of Jamia when Lt Gen MA Zaki (Retd) in June 1996 took up the task of leading it to the heights of academic excellence in the capacity of its vice chancellor. Though many on the campus didn't welcome his entry into the campus, none of them opened his mouth against it. "Such was the state of affairs in the university that it needed none less than cut-and-dry military man to bring back a semblance of order to its functioning," recalled a teacher.
Lt Gen Zaki, as expected, started on the welcome note by taking on the "undesirable elements" who were out to rule the roost in the university. And for this, they could stoop to any extent. "Lt Gen Zaki was faced with multifarious challenges: to bring the bring the university back on the track academically as well as administratively against all odds and chaos. Nothing was in order. But he took the bull by the horns by conducting admissions tests and examinations on time," said a university functionary, wishing not to be identified.
But the achievements of Lt Gen Zaki and his sincere efforts to put the institution back on the track are confined to the dustbin of history now. The present vice chancellor Syed Shahid Mehdi, though an IAS officer, has virtually failed to deliver the goods on all fronts. The same undesirable elements have begun rearing their heads. They use the university hostels as their hideouts. Some of them even operate from these hostels. And Jamia, spread in an area of over 200 acres, finds itself at the crossroads.
But Jamia is Jamia. It has learnt how to survive along with all the ills and evils. "Since early '60s, Jamia has been reeling under corruption, favouritism and nepotism and it has always borne the brunt of all these ills," said a former faculty member of Jamia.
In many departments, classes have truly become rare. A good number of teachers are said to be running their own private businesses. Some of them have stakes in the real estate. The university has not yet been able to recover landed properties worth crores of rupees from the land sharks. Some of them are said to be the "near and dear" of Jamia functionaries or faculty members.
Sources said that a large tract of the university land is under the possession of the encroachers. "The history of land grabbing in Jamia starts from 1950s itself," said a university official. According to a rough estimate, the university has already lost the landed properties worth crores of rupees. Former vice chancellor AJ Kidwai tried to recover it from the land sharks. He succeeded but only partially.
At the same time, Jamia is also paying the price for the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) lot. A significant number of the Faculty members are from AMU. Those from other universities like Jawaharlal Nehru and Delhi University are in a microscopic minority. Those who are still stuck with Jamia is only because of the "Muslim character" of the institute.
The growing chasm between students from Bihar and western UP has come up as a matter of serious concern for the university well-wishers. "Students from Bihar have to face lot of harassment and humiliation in the hands of our counterparts from UP," said Fazal, who hails from Samastipur in Bihar. "Even teachers and other officers do discriminate against us," he added. "Even Muslim students from Bihar have to face all this," said Tanveer.
But there are still people like Dean of Students Welfare Prof Saizan who are very optimistic about the prospect of Jamia. "No doubt, there are challenges before Jamia. But it has faced them bravely and successfully," he said, adding that the real problem was of projecting the positive aspects of Jamia. "With the launch of the university website, things have improved now," he added.
Asked why the Jamia gets into the picture whenever some "anti-national or anti-social" elements are nabbed from the vicinity of Jamia, Prof Saizan said: "It is, indeed, unfortunate and saddens us. Jamia has nothing to do with these elements. It is a centre of academic activities and hopefully will remain so for good and all," he added.
In fact, it is this optimism due
to which it has been surviving since the very beginning. But the signs
of degeneration are writ large on the campus. Jamia had come into being
at the call given by Mahatma Gandhi to boycott all the British aided institutes
and those who put their heart and soul into its growth included stalwarts
like Maulana Mahmud Hasan, Hakim Ajmal Khan, Dr Ansari and Dr Zakir Hussain.
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