By Kashif-ul-Huda

In 2007, I was trying to think of a good name for a news website that I wanted to setup to focus on news and issues of Indian Muslims. I was looking for a personality, an incident, or an idea that will best represent Indian Muslims. I came across this quote from Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar, “I belong to two circles of equal size, but which are not concentric. One is India, and the other is the Muslim world.” I knew my search for a name was over and I called my website TwoCircles.net. Today, I want to explore both circles of Maulana Jauhar and his understanding of what it means to belong to these two circles.

To understand Maulana Jauhar, it will be helpful if we learn a bit about his personal life. He was born in Rampur in 1878 into a family of five brothers and a sister. He was the youngest. His father passed away when he was just two and so he was raised in a single parent household by his mother who is famously known as “Bi Amman.” He was educated in Aligarh Muslim University and thanks to the support of his brother Shaukat Ali, he went on to enroll in Oxford. He tried to get into Indian Civil Services (ICS) but failed. He returned to India and for a short time worked in Rampur and Baroda but this is not where his heart was and we find him in Calcutta in 1911. Here he starts his English weekly “The Comrade.” Two years later his publication moved to Delhi, the new capital of British India. There along with “The Comrade” he also started the Urdu daily “Hamdard.”

Discussing his reasons for entering journalism, he wrote in Hamdard in 1927 that “By journalism my aim is not journalism, rather to serve the country and the community. (mulk va millat).” [Hamdard, 23 Jan 1927] And we see this theme of community and country in his writings and speeches from 1911 till his death in 1931, of course there were some development and changes in his outlook but his two circles of India and Islam remained as strong as ever. At this time I would like to clarify that I am setting “Islam” as his second circle though he mentioned the “Muslim world” in his original quote.

His statement about belonging to two circles was part of one of his last speeches, as he died just a few days after that. This declaration which beautifully sums up his philosophy and still resonates with Indian Muslims of today, can be found in his writing and speeches since the beginning.

His first political act was to help in the foundation of All-India Muslim League in 1906 in Dhaka. Written in the latter part of 1906, two letters to Nawab Mushin-ul-Mulk provide a glimpse into his thinking at that time. In the first letter referring to the list of dignitaries who used to visit Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), he wrote, “this helps neither the college nor the community or you. Muslims will get some small and big employment and you will be awarded a useless and disrespectful award...” This clearly shows that though at that time, a loyal citizen of the British India, he does not care too much about being close to the government. He doesn't rank success in terms of employment for Muslims even if they are in higher positions. Nowhere in the letter does he mention freedom or independence so we don't know if he was even thinking about it along those lines. This letter shows that from the very beginning he was concerned about Muslims and that explains his involvement with the Muslim League.

In the second letter to Nawab Muhsin-ul-Mulk as a follow up to the first one, he wrote, “If we want to establish a national (qaumi) college then we have to set up another college where there will be no help taken from the government or from any British. If this is not possible, then we have to say goodbye to our national college …” An important thing to notice here is that he wanted to set up a national college, he used the term “qaumi” and not “milli.” Secondly, he wanted to be out of the control of the government.

Five years later he jumped into the field of journalism by launching an English weekly, “The Comrade.” In 1913, he moved to Delhi and along with “Comrade” started an Urdu daily “Hamdard.” In 1927 he recalled his reasons for starting “Comrade” and “Hamdard”, he wrote, “I started “Comrade” thinking it will be a way to serve the country and the community (mulk va millat) and for the same reason “Hamdard” is still being published...” [Hamdard, 23 Jan 1927]

The next big incident of his political career was when he was arrested for writing the article “The Choice of the Turks” published in The Comrade in 1914. Till this time he considered himself a loyal British citizen and a modern educated Muslim. He utilized his time under detention in Chhindwara by studying about Islam and though always a champion of “milli” causes we see him develop into a leader of the Muslims with his thinking and reasoning now grounded more in Islamic terminologies and reasons.

In 1926, he wrote, “Since I have understood religion it is my complete life.” [Hamdard, 3 Dec 1926]. in 1930 during his famous speech at the Round Table Conference, he further elaborates his religiousness, “religion to my mind, means the interpretation of life. I have a culture, a polity, an outlook on life, a complete synthesis which is Islam. Where God commands, I am a Muslim first, a Muslim second, and a Muslim last, and nothing but a Muslim.... My first duty is to my Maker, not to His Majesty the King, nor to my companion Dr. Moonje... He must be a Hindu first and I must be a Muslim first so far as that duty is concerned. But where India is concerned, where India's freedom is concerned, where the welfare of India is concerned, I am an Indian first, an Indian second, an Indian last, and nothing but an Indian.” He doesn't see being Muslim in anyway prevents him from being an Indian and that's why he always mentions community along with the country. (milli va qaumi or mulki va millat).

He always thought by serving his community he is serving his country. He saw no contradiction there. It is also true that he saw himself as part of a bigger Muslim ummah. He was not ashamed of declaring that he believes in the superiority of Islam over other religions. So in 1923 he says, “by belief and conviction I am a Muslim and consider Islam the best of all the religions. Islam's superiority is a part of my belief and thus I consider a worst sort of Muslim better than Gandhiji.” Then he adds, “I am neither convinced of Gandhiji's spiritualism nor of his kashf-o-karamat (revelation and miracle) nor do I include him in the ranks of 'auliya'. His faith is different and my faith is different... I have accepted him my political leader only and nothing else.”

And he accepted Gandhiji as his leader and made him the leader of India. Gandhiji's all-India tour after his return from South Africa was financed by the Khilafat Committee. His first national movement the “non-cooperation movement” originated in Jamiat-ulema hind and Khilafat Committee before it was finally accepted by the Congress. Naturally, Maulana was not happy when this movement was called off by Gandhiji.

But support to Gandhiji was not simply tactical, he truly believed that India needed to be free and this he thought was his religious duty as well as political. Writing in 1921 in Comrade he declares, “ I am a Muslim first and every thing else afterwards; just as I believe that Mahatma Gandhi is Hindu first and everything else afterwards. All that Islam demands from me is that I should not live in a land where I could not follow the dictates of my religion with impunity, and it is just because Swaraj (self-rule) will give me that and the present British autocracy does not that I yearn for Swaraj and regards its attainment as a religious duty.”

He was a firm believer in the message of Islam and a leader of the khilafat movement yet he believed that democracy is something that is what we should be working towards. He rebuked Saud family for establishing a kingdom in Arabia. He wrote, “Hedjaz, the Center of Muslim world cannot be governed by kings and sultans but should be under a Democratic Republican Government absolutely free from non-Muslim control.”

Though in favour of democracy, he was worried that the majority rule may mean that India will become an effective “Hindu rule” to the determinant of Muslim interest. That's why even after becoming Congress President in 1923, he defended his earlier support for separate electorate. He saw that in India, religious identity is a dominant identity and thought this will turn the electoral battle into a communal war. In his presidential address to the Congress he said, “I wanted Muslims to understand that communal conflict is inevitable during the struggle for immediate needs but it is important that in keeping the future of India in our sight, community and national interests need to be supreme and we have to be united leaving behind our conflicts.”

In one article in 1927, he asked all Indian communities to come together to form unified nationalism (mushtarka qaumiyat) so that India can gain independence from the control of others (ghair).

He always asked for the freedom of India but he was terrified by the prospect of a majority communalism. 1930 a Khilafat Committee statement read “real communalism masquerades as “nationalism” and safeguards against communalism itself are called “communalism.”

The same statement later announces that “the Khilafat Organization is for independence not for slavery; and just as it has refused to let the Muslim community remain a dependency of the British, it now refuses to make it a dependency of any other community or party. It is hungry for freedom and would not accept a mere change of masters. Let the Musalmans keep both their eyes open, and watch the situations. They can throw in their lot only with those who would recognise freedom as the birthright of India, and would at the same time recognise the birthright of the Indian Musalmans to be free and equal partners in the administration of India.”

So he is unequivocally calling for Indian Muslims to be partners in the new administration to ensure that they simply don't have a change in rulers while their condition remain the same. He however put the responsibility also on the shoulders of his community.

“With the proof of being a living community the Musalmans can compel recognition of their communal identity and respect for their legitimate rights. Without this they can be nothing but camp followers whether of an alien government or of the other Indian communities. It is they themselves that must decide, and that too by actions and not by words, whether they love freedom or slavery.”

Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar thus appears to be a mujahid of Islam, a fighter for India's freedom, a champion of democracy, even when we don't consider that he left his mark in journalism, Urdu poetry, and the fact that he was an excellent speaker. Even after 79 years since his death, his memory, however faded, continues to live on in both India and Pakistan. There is still a University under construction in Rampur named after him and as I mentioned before, a modern website had to find its name in one of his quotes.

I thank the organizers for giving me this opportunity and Afzal Usmani sahib who urgently sent me the books that I needed for this research.

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Author is the editor of news website www.TwoCircles.net and can be contacted by email at kashif@twocircles.net

“Sir Saiyad was a prophet of education “ -- Mahatma Gandhi

Aligarh movement was led by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan to bring Indian Muslims closer to modern and scientific education. Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) is one of the fruit of that movement. What has been the contribution of Aligarh movement and AMU to India in general and Muslims in particular? 135 years later where is Aligarh movement headed?

Three people furthering the cause of Aligarh movement in their own ways will discuss the significance and importance of Aligarh movement and its future:

Ali Rizvi , Ex-President of Federation of Aligarh Alumni Associations (http://www.aligs.org/) and member of AMU Alumni Advisory Committee that recommended setting up AMU branches in different states.

Shaheer Khan , founder and co-moderator of AMUNetwork (http://www.yahoogroups.com/list/amunetwork), a mailing list of over 7500 AMU alumni.

Azim Khan Sherwani, Chairperson of Taeemi Caravan (http://www.taleemicaravan.org/), a people’s movement in the district of Bahraich (UP) to raise awareness about education.

Discussion will be moderated by Kashif-ul-Huda, editor of TwoCircles.net

When: Saturday Jan 15th, 2011. 10am-12pm.

Where: MIT Room # 56-154 (http://whereis.mit.edu/?go=56 )

Parking: available on Ames Street (77 Ames Street, Cambridge)

MBTA: Red line to Kendall Square

Contact: Kashif (858-610-8738) or Kashif@twocircles.net

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http://kaaashif.blogspot.com
http://www.TwoCircles.net

Naved Masood*

Zamindars in parts of Northern India[2] enjoyed the right to collect land revenue in their ‘estates’ (Zamindaris). They also had to perform certain ‘managerial functions’ on behalf of the government within their ‘estates’. Most (though not all), were titled ‘Nawab’ or ‘Raja’ depending on their religious affiliations. The common public perception of the Zamindar was one of a petty tyrant to the tiller of the soil who was a lackey of the ‘sarkar’ and an impediment to any improvement in agrarian conditions. This was substantially correct as it conformed to observed facts. There were exceptions to this prototype; among the Zamindars a few displayed extraordinary managerial abilities, and fewer still who were a friend to their ‘ryots’ [3]. Rare indeed was the Zamindar who combined in himself the two virtues – Nawab Ahmad Saeed Khan of Chhatari was one such rarity.

Formative Years

Born in 1888, Ahmad Saeed Khan was the son of Abdul Ali Khan[4] the Zamindar of Chattari then a small estate administratively in Bulandshahr District but more proximate to Aligarh city some twenty miles away. The family was ‘Muslim Rajput’ or ‘Lalkhanis’. Ahmad Saeed started his school education late as he had early religious instructions at home resulting in his being a “Hafiz’ i.e. one who commits the entire Quranic text to memory. He joined ‘English House’, the boarding for the scions of the elite away from but attached to the Muhammedan Anglo Oriental Collegiate School popularly known as ‘Minto Circle’. After passing the matriculate or tenth class in 1906 he had to concentrate on managing the affairs of his Zamindari following the death of his father. So small was his ‘estate’ that initially he was not even recognised as ‘Nawab’ and had to be content with the title “Kunwar”, it was in 1915 that he was recognized as “Nawab” for life – the title was made hereditary four years later in recognition of his proven capabilities which will find mention later.

The settlement report of Bulandshahr District (1915) takes note of the unusual interest taken by the young Zamindar in ‘agricultural improvements’ in his Zamindari. By then a good number of Zamindars were indolent absentees staying in the comfort of cities with the management of the estates being left to local musclemen or resident relatives. The cultivators were often harassed not only for realization of revenue but even for collection of arbitrary levies which sometime extended to the absurd hathiana and motorana being respectively cost of maintaining elephants and motor cars! Anyway, a feature of Nawab Sahib’s Zamindari management was his constant endeavour to develop infrastructure in his village, improvements in cattle breeds and seed quality so that the income from the estate improved. By 1920 he had managed to add many more villages to Chhatari by buying their Zamindari rights. What is more, he managed to establish new villages by bringing fallow tracts under cultivation. Indeed in later years he was to lament (in his two volumes autobiography yade ayyam) that if he had the foresight he would be establishing industries rather than acquiring more villages. The fact remains that in a few decades before abolition of the system, he was the last Zamindar in UP to have considerably added to his estate.

Public Life

The introduction of elected District Boards in the wake of the Government of India Act 1919 provided an opportunity to local elites to work for area development of their District as also to try their hand at ‘party politics’. While much development was witnessed in the southern and western parts of the country, in UP there was little progress and much politics in the Boards. One of the very few exceptions was Bulandshahr where the young Ahmad Saeed was first elected Chairman of the Board. The experience he gained in improvement of his own estate was put to very good use in the public cause and his Board stole a march over all others in the matter of opening schools, extending irrigation network, opening of dispensaries and above all starting the innovative practice of starting arrangements for marketing of agricultural produce – Bulandshahr soon became a ‘show case’ with Presidents and other office bearers of other District Boards making a beeline for the place to see for themselves how the hitherto unachieved was achieved.

Nawab Chattari attending the round table conference in England

His achievements did not go unnoticed and the Zamindars of the District elected him to be the member of the UP Legislative Council in 1920 where he played a pioneering role in initiating policies to develop agro-industries and institutional credit for the agricultural sector. As Minister Industries he was the founding father of establishing sugar industry and modern flour mills in the province. In 1925 he was appointed Home Member[5] a position which he held till 1933. As Home Member he was responsible for introducing a system of competitive test for recruitment of ‘upper subordinates’ (personnel above the rank of Head Constable) replace the earlier system of ‘recommendations’. He also took the revolutionary step of throwing open recruitment of certain ‘excluded castes’ – chiefly ‘ahirs’ and kurmis – at the upper subordinate level. In politics he was the leader of Zamindar party in the provincial legislature. Being a cross communal alliance this party is believed to have acted as a cushion in absorbing communal tensions in the period 1925 to 1935. With a proven track record in consensus building he was an invitee to the first and second round table conferences held in London to find a solution to the political problems of India and to frame a constitutional framework for the country to accommodate the emerging political realities.

His public services and administrative competence were recognised when he was appointed to officiate as Governor of UP for a year in 1933 – this was the first time ever that an Indian was appointed to the position in any province. He was knighted in 1928 and there are indications that in 1933 there was a move to make him a ‘Lord temporal’.
Following the enactment of the Government of India Act 1935 which introduced a quasi federal polity, he withdrew from active politics but his counsel remained available in Government Committees. He was invited to be the Prime Minister of Hyderabad State in 1941, a position which he held till 1943 and to which he was reappointed in 1947 at a time of great turmoil. He made sincere efforts to facilitate peaceful merger of Hyderabad with the newly emerged Indian Union but was made to quit by the hotheads led by Qasim Razvi of the Majlis-i-Ittehadul Muslimeen with tragic consequences wrought by Police Action of September 1948.

Aligarh Affairs

He remained involved with the affairs of the MAO College and the University throughout his life from 1911 when he was first elected a Trustee of the College. He was the founder member of the Court of the University and remained associated with that body either as member or late Pro Chancellor and later still as Chancellor. His association with the Government of UP stood the University in good stead as he was instrumental in providing finances for establishment of the Ahmedi School for the Blind and in sanctioning grants for the Girls School and Intermediate College run by Shaikh Mohammed Abdullah till the institutions became part of the University in 1941.
In later years though his association with the University was in very formal and titular positions as Pro Chancellor and Chancellor, he was a symbol of continuity and a link of the past with a fast changing scenario - such linkages have their own importance in maintaining continuity and stability in institutions.

Nawab Chattari with Syedna Saifuddin Tahir and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad

Nawab Chattari receiving King Saud of Saudi Arabia at AMU Aligarh

Nawab Chattari with President of UAE Shaikh Zaiyed at AMU Aligarh with AMU Students Union

Nawab Chattari introducing his son to Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, Prime Minister of India during his visit to AMU

Nawab Chattari with Tinku Abdul Rahman, Founding Prime Minister of Malaysia during his visit to AMU

Nawab Chattari with Raja Mahendar Pratap Singh, First President of Indian exile Government during British rule.Raja Mahendar Pratap Singh was an AMU alum

Nawab Chattari with H.E. Fakhruddin Ali Ahmad President of India during his visit to AMU

Nawab Chattari with P Shiv Shankar, Foreign Minister of India. Mr. Syed Shahabuddin (IFS) can also be seen in the picture.

Nawab Chattari honoring Raja Karan Singh of Kashmir at AMU Convocation

Nawab Chattari with Mrs. Indira Gandhi. Prof. Abdul Aleem, VC AMU is also seen in the picture

The Extraordinary Human Being

A man of innate charm and pleasant disposition, to all who had the good fortune of coming in contact with him, his humility and affection was palpable. In a speech in Aligarh Mrs. Vijayluxmi Pandit recounted that when she was incarcerated in Naini Central Jail for her part in the Civil Disobedience Movement in 1933 Nawab Sahib came to inspect the prison as Governor and burst into tears seeing the daughter of Motilal Nehru languishing behind the bars! In his autobiography he refers to the death of his wife who left behind young children and mentions that during the course of the day he would play joyfully with the children and at night tiptoe to their room and shed tears at their loss. As long as age and health permitted, he personally led Taraweeh prayers in the mosque attached to his residence Rahat Manzil in Aligarh. It was not as if he was just a bundle of touching emotions, unlike the run of the mill landlord he had imbibed much wisdom in his eventful career. In 1977 he invited those who had made it to the IAS and allied services over for dinner at his place; dining over, he gave us three pieces of advice which are worth repeating in full. First do not praise or run down anyone in superlatives – you may have to change your opinion. Second control your anger – it is infectious. Third learn the language of the people among whom you find yourselves – else you will be at the mercy of vested interests. It is a moot point how much of that sage advice was put to practice by us but thirty four years down the road this writer testifies to their innate perspicuity.

*Mr. Naved Masood is an AMU Alum and a senior Civil Servant in Govt. of India and he is based in New Delhi. He can be reached at naved.masood@gmail.com

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[1] Nawab Hafiz Sir Ahmad Said Khan - That his how the name was spelt in Government records.

[2] In Punjab the term Zamindar simply connoted a peasant.

[3]This word is an anglicized corruption of the word “reyaya” or subject of a ruler. In its corrupted form, however, the word means peasants paying land revenue.

[4]It is a coincidence no doubt but an extraordinary coincidence that two of the most enterprising Muslims of the last century, Khwaja Abdul Hamied and the Nawab of Chhatari were born within a radius of twenty miles and their fathers bore the same name – Abdul Ali!

[5]Under the Government of India Act 1919 certain subjects were ‘transferred’ to the provinces and included agriculture, education and industries etc – these subjects were looked after by Ministers appointed among elected members of the Legislative Council; other subjects like Home and Finance were ‘reserved’ and directly administered by the Governor with the help of ‘Members’ who were de facto Ministers subject to the difference that their accountability was to the Governor and not the Council.

Naved Masood*

News had come last week of the hospitalisation of Justice Saiyed Saghir Ahmed with respiratory distress in Lucknow. When I rang up to inquire his welfare his son in law gave the glad tidings that he was out of the woods and I could briefly speak to him. On Sunday it was gathered that he was well on his way to recovery and will be discharged on Monday morning – news came late last night (Monday) evening that he was no more! This brings the curtain down on the life of a loveable, affectionate human being.

Saghir Bhai, as he was almost universally known, was born in 1935. His father Mr. Syed Mohammed Husain was not only a well known lawyer but a versatile jurist whose compendium of legislations and regulations from the days of the East India Company onwards is a testimony to his erudition. Saghir Bhai had his early education in Christian College Lucknow. After passing the Intermediate examination he went to Aligarh and obtained his BSc from the AMU. He came back to Lucknow to be in his father’s foot-steps and joined the legal profession after obtaining a degree in Law from the University of Lucknow. He soon became Standing Counsel for the Central Government at the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court; his fairness and diligence stood Organisations like the Railways in good stead. He was elevated to the Bench of the High Court in 1981 and was appointed Chief Justice of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court in 1993. He was transferred to Hyderabad as Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court in 1994 from where he moved over to the Supreme Court in 1995 retiring in June 2000.

As a judge he was very popular among the lawyers due to his unfailing politeness and consideration particularly to the younger members of the bar. Though he left Uttar Pradesh in 1991 he maintained contacts with the members of the subordinate judiciary. To the younger judicial officers with a reputation of integrity he was some kind of a patron saint. His major contribution to public affairs came after retirement when in 2005 the Prime Minister appointed him to head a Committee to work out a consensus among different regions and sections of Jammu and Kashmir for enhanced autonomy. Although the recommendations of the Committee remain unimplemented any future initiative to iron out local differences will have to substantially lean on the “Saghir Ahmad Committee” report.

This writer had the good fortune of enjoying his unselfish love and attention. Whenever he happened to visit Delhi he would invariably ask for a ‘nashist’ or a sitting for general conversation. Even as late as last Friday when he had come out of coma and we spoke over the phone, he was solicitous of my welfare and expressing a keen desire to meet face to face at an early date. He was a generous host and a real connoisseur of good food awho was genuinely pleased to have at least a few guests share the repast at the dining table. Deeply attached to his father, during his judgeship of the High Court in Lucknow he would drive most evenings from his residence in Kali Das Marg to the old city to have Dinner with him. His innate goodness and lack of aggressive covetousness came in the way of receiving post retirement sinecures and assignments that come all too frequently to retired judges of the apex court – his reward was however the high degree of love and respect that he enjoyed among the members of the bar and general public.

In the death of Justice Saiyed Saghir Ahmed the country and community has lost a most decent human being and this writer has been deprived the company of someone considerably older than him but who was a dearly respected friend.

*Mr. Naved Masood is an AMU Alum and a senior Civil Servant in Govt. of India and he is based in New Delhi. He can be reached at naved.masood@gmail.com

By Kashif-ul-Huda, TwoCircles.net

There are three myths about the Aligarh movement: it was simply a movement for education, Aligarh Muslim University IS the movement, and that the movement is long dead. Syed Ahmed Khan’s concerns, visions, and efforts for the Indian Muslims came to be later known as the Aligarh Movement but it was not simply a movement to make Muslims learn Western education or even the establishment of a university. It was a movement to give mission to a community that seemed to have lost its bearing in the fast-changing world, to prepare them for new challenges, and give them new tools to connect back to their religion and history. Incredibly, Muslims of India still face these issues and the need for Aligarh movement is still alive.

Rarely history offers such a sharp divide as in 1857 when medieval India came to a close and a modern India emerged from the ruins. Syed Ahmed understood the new power and new rules that will shape the future of India. British saw Muslims as a threat and a challenge to the British rule in India. They held Muslims responsible for the brutal 1857 war between British and Indian forces. In this situation Muslim centers of learning and culture in North India were uprooted or abandoned. At that time Syed Ahmad was in the employment of the British. He wrote “Asbab-e-baghawat-e-hind” (The Causes of the Indian Revolt) to show that events of 1857 was a result of British high-handedness in India and not a conspiracy by the Muslim feudal elites. It was an attempt to tell the rulers of India that we understand that you are here to stay but we want to be a partner in this new system.

Modern or Western education was a tool for Syed Ahmed Khan to make sure that Muslims are playing their roles in the new world that was quickly shaping up in front of them. They had to be part of it or be swept off of their religious and cultural bearings in the new tide of modernism. Syed Ahmed Khan did indeed establish a college that eventually became Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) but it is wrong to think that it was his only contribution or his sole vision. He also started a scientific society, a magazine for social reform, wrote commentaries on Quran- all in his attempt to reform the Muslim society.

Muslims rightly believe that AMU is his greatest achievement but focus on this university comes at a cost. Aligarh movement has become synonymous with the AMU which meant that the movement has stagnated for the last few decades. Some individual efforts have been made by AMU alumni in establishing schools and giving scholarships. AMU alumni religiously observe Sir Syed Day dinner and annual mushaira but is this the best way to remember founder of this movement?

New AMU branches being established in Mallapuram and Murshidabad and a few more proposed in other places can be called extending Aligarh movement to new geographical regions. It is a welcome step but as long as Aligarh movement remains attached to the AMU it cannot reach its full potential. This movement starts with education but doesn’t end there.

It is time to delink movement from the university at Aligarh. Delinking it will immediately open up the Aligarh movement to people who never went to AMU and may not have the same passion for the University as others. It will also mean that not all problems or issues of AMU will be something that this movement needs to respond to. Aligarh movement can continue to benefit from the intellectual capital that comes out of AMU and can tap into the amazingly wide-spread and resourceful network of AMU alumni. It will give a purpose and mission to thousands that graduate each year from AMU and a platform for millions of educated Muslims to contribute back to their community in a much more organized and planned way.

Envision an Aligarh movement that inspires our students to go in colonies, small-towns, and villages and make our young and old literate; our graduates to devote their time to find solutions to our problems; and our educated and professionals to give time and money to invest in community projects and articulate community issues and aspirations to people in the larger society and to the world. This will be a community that will have the confidence to face its challenges and come up with resources to help chart a new path that will make hundreds of universities and thousands of colleges in its wake but its greatest contribution is making of a Muslim who is equally aware and proud of his or her Indian and Muslim heritage.

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http://twocircles.net/2011feb14/closer_look_aligarh_movement.html

Closer Look is a monthly column by TwoCircles.net editor Kashif-ul-Huda. For publication permissions please contact kashif@twocircles.net

Naved Masood*

I learnt of the passing away of Kamran Kazmi Sahib early yesterday morning while already on way to Aligarh from our mutual friend Wasim Ahmad aka "Bhindi" and was thus unable to put the sad news on the network. I notice that his son Rehan (who very thoughtfully also rang me up soon after the burial) has already notified his father's sad, last inevitable journey.

Kamran Kazmi was the son of a highly regarded civil servant Muizuddin Ahmad, who played a very important role in actual ushering in of "Green Revolution" in UP. The family is among the old Allahabad Muslim elite. His maternal grandfather Mr Abdul Wasey was one of the pillars of UP magistracy during the period the British empire was on its last legs. As City Magistrate of Agra in 1942 it was he who let off the young Atal Bihari Vajpayee for offences relating to participation in the "Quit India Movement" - an episode, that many will remember, was revived during Vajpayee ji's tenure as Prime Minister. Two of his maternal uncles were distinguished academics: Prof Nafis Ahmed (known as 'Addha' in pre 1947 Aligarh on account of his short stature, was a distinguished Geographer who later migrated to Pakistan and palyed a significant role in resource mapping of the erstwhile East Pakistan; his other uncle Prof Rais Ahmed was a Professor of Physics at AMU and later occupied key positions as Chief of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and Vice Chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC) apart from being Vice Chancellor of the Kashmir University.

Kamran Sahib's claim to fame was not simply on account of being the scion of a distinguished family - he was indedd an exceedingly humane person with a clear head and noble heart. Time and again he approached me and many others associated with the Government for sorting out problems of strangers whose troubles he came to know and with whom he had nothing to do. On a couple of occasions, however, he took the trouble of contacting me to tell that on further inquiries he found that the version of the person on whose behalf he had put in a word was not correct. Such altruism tinged with a sense of responsibility is not very common. I had often wondered aloud during his healthier days as to how a person running his own business could be so considerate and free of vices.

His reservoir of knowledge of and concern with the well being of his alma mater was phenomenal. Even during his illness he would not let go of this concern and constantly faulted me for my indifference to the travails of AMU. It is doubtful if many educational institutions anywhere in the world would be blessed with such caring alumni who had
no personal vested interest in the in institution beyond a genuine sense of belonging and feelings of joy and sorrow depending on how the "beloved" was faring.

It is truly said that the true mettle of a person is seen when he/ she is faced with adversity. The bravery and stoic fortitude with which he faced his grave ailment was simply remarkable - it bordered on unbelievable. I should know as I was very much privy to his medical tribulations since the was first detected with ascites (fluid in the
abdominal cavity). My good friend Prof Nirmal Kumar, the Gastroenterologist who diagnosed his condition was quite candid with him not simply about the diaganosis but also the prognosis despite my request to him to be 'roundabou'. The experienced clinician that "Nirmal Bhai" is, he assured me that people like Kmran Kazmi 'cope better if
they know the whole story'. I doubt if Kmaran Sahib had taken his family in confidence in the matter at least initially. He would periodically update me over the phone about his condition from Allahabad - his versions were a mix of optimism and realism. I can only recall such bravery from just another person, the late Prof Izhar Husain Professor
of Mathematics at AMU (that is another episode to be narrated at the proper time). All I can say is that in my present assignment I come across so many individuals facing serious illness - among those one knew in their "healthier days" many were picture of boldness and courage which gave way to despair and gnawing anxiety in the face of life threatening situations which was quite natural and understandable. With people like Mr Kmran Kazmi it was therefore inexplicable and unnatural -one would not know how to "deal" with him during such period of distress. His "normal conversation" was frankly quite disconcerting. All in all here was a person of extraordinary courage and total detachment.

He deserves to be as much celebrated as mourned by the members of the network.

*Mr. Naved Masood is an AMU Alum and a senior Civil Servant in Govt. of India and he is based in New Delhi. He can be reached at naved.masood@gmail.com

Note : Syed Kamran Kazmi stayed in AMU from 1963 to 1969 and completed his M.Sc. (Physics) in 1969 and settled down in Allahabad. He also served as member of AMU Court from 1992 to 2003.

Dear All,
As we all know that MAO College transformed to Aligarh Muslim University in 1920.
To realize this transformation, a fund raising drive took place at All India level under the Chairmanship of Sir Sultan Shah Agha Khan. Here is a receipt of donation to the fund by Qazi Mian Mohammad Amjad Sahab of Shahpur (now District Sargodha - Pakistan).

Dear all,

Very recently most of the Aligarh Alumni Associations across the globe had received the following letter from AMU Aligarh Registrar regarding election of 25-members of AMU Court under AMU Alumni category. Under 1981 amendment AMU Court had a provision of representation of AMU Alumni and 25 seats were allocated to AMU Alumni. Since 1981, no election was held for this 25 seats of AMU Court.

I would like to request the Alumni Associations across the globe to follow the procedure so that this election can happen and AMU Alumni representation can be seen in AMU Court.

Regards.
Afzal Usmani
Austin TX
==================================

Naved Masood*

At a time when illiteracy among Indian Muslims is a ‘fact of life’ and educational institutions run by the community amply illustrate the state of its education secular or religious, any talk of academic excellence sounds like a pipe- dream. Even in the South and West of the country a vast majority of Muslim institutions carry a load of mediocrity behind the façade of impressive buildings and fairly impressive physical infrastructure. It is difficult to imagine in this scenario that almost eight decades ago an individual managed to elevate a minority educational institution to the very top within a short while. That individual was Sir Syed Ross Masood (1889-1937). It will be instructive to refresh public memory about his life and attainments. That he was not allowed to continue in peace and the excellence so miraculously brought out by him did not survive his tenure is of course beyond the scope of this biographical sketch.

Born in Delhi in 1889, Masud had the best possible pedigree. He was the grandson of Sir Syed about whom any explanation will be wasting space and time. His maverick father, Syed Mahmud had the unique distinction of being the fist Muslim to graduate from the Cambridge University (1871) and whose elevation to the judgeship of the Allahabad High Court at the age of thirty-two (1882) made him the youngest ever appointee to the post. It may only be added that Mahmud is now regarded as among the brightest jurists to hold judicial offices and some of his rulings are legal classics which retain their force till date – that the jealousy of his white peers and his own lack of temperance in personal life led to his resignation in 1891 and his early demise in 1902 is a matter to be regretfully placed on record. Masud lost his grand-father while aged nine, the titular guardianship of a progressively declining father too disappeared four year later. A young Masud was practically under the guardianship of the Collector of Aligarh on behalf of the Government of the United Provinces. He had his early education at the MAO Collegiate School Aligarh followed by a series of Government Schools in UP till in 1906-07 it was decided to send him to England for further education. After obtaining M.A Degree in English Literature of the University of Cambridge (Christ College) he secured an appointment in the prestigious Indian Education Service in 1913. He held the positions of Headmaster Ravenshaw Collegiate School, Cuttack and then Professor of the Patna College. In 1916 he joined the Government of the Nizam as the Director of Public Instruction in Hyderabad and was later promoted as Secretary Education Department of the same government, a position that he retained till 1928 when he took over as Vice Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University.

Before moving over to his Aligarh days – the main concern of this short biographical sketch - it may be noted in passing that in Hyderabad he was among the ‘founding fathers’ of the Osmania University. Despite his reservations about Urdu becoming the medium of instruction in that University, he did much of the early spadework in its establishment. He was instrumental in recruiting the faculty and (even more important) in locating and recruiting a galaxy of translators who formed the core of the team to translate course material for the University and which now forms the very basis of .

His appointment as the Vice Chancellor of the AMU was at a time when the eight year old University was in the news for very unfortunate reasons. A Committee had exposed the grave administrative irregularities and academic deficiencies in the functioning of the institution. Students were leaving the University in large numbers, its degrees were at a discount and a large number of teachers were under-qualified. The Pro Vice Chancellor Dr Ziauddin was held accountable for the sorry state and made to leave the University. Ross Masud’s appointment was natural not only as he was the grandson of the founder of the College that had blossomed into a University but also because of his proven track record in Hyderabad. Masood was unique in another way; He was virtually the first academic to be appointed Vice Chancellor of any Indian University. (Almost all Vice Chancellors of Indian Universities were hitherto sitting High Court Judges many of whom without University Education as it till the early twentieth century it was possible to take the ‘Bar Examination’ after completion of schooling – even a legendary Vice Chancellor like Sir Ashutosh Mukerji held the position by virtue of being a judge of the Calcutta High Court although he was an eminent Mathematician in his own right).

Masud knew Aligarh and what ailed the Institution. He set about the task of putting it back on the rails and to put it on a high pedestal without delay. To recount these steps in detail is not possible within the confines of this write-up. It will be possible to only summarize the following in the ‘bullets format’:

The results were abundantly in evidence. Not only did the enrollment picked up but for most of the courses the number of applicants exceeded available seats. The trend of brighter students migrating to other Universities and Colleges was reversed. In fact for disciplines like Physics, Chemistry and Geography etc AMU became the most favoured destination of students from across the country irrespective of their communal or linguistic labels. Similarly, presence of so many bright young people at one place also made the platform of its Students’ Union a coveted forum of political leaders and intellectuals of various persuasions. In short, within a few years the corporate life of the University was enriched and the All India character of the communities of students and teachers was restored to what it was till a major erosion was caused by the Khilafat and non – Cooperation movements.

Aligarh became the first University in the country to start enrolling students in PhD programme – in other Universities this facility was then confined to teachers. Current Science in one of its issues of 1933 carried a report identifying Aligarh the best place for research in Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Zoology. Newspapers (English and Urdu) carried frequent reports indicating the developments of the campus. A number of old families taking note of the promotion of advancement of knowledge in Aligarh donated the old manuscripts, farmans and records which laid the foundation of Historical research of the medieval period which later blossomed into the Aligarh school of Historical research. For the first time ever an exclusive Department of Urdu was established anywhere in the world. What is most so remarkable about these developments is often missed - AMU was then essentially a private University it had to meet most of its recurring expenditure from its own resources with government grants barely amounting to twenty percent of the requirements. As other Universities were not involved in regular research Aligarh had no ‘need’ to do so as a matter of ‘competitiveness’.

As we are not tracing the history of the University politics we need not deal with the circumstances in which he had to resign the office of Vice Chancellor in 1933. Suffice it to say, local vested interests and disgruntled under-qualified teachers brought about a situation where Masud who had sacrificed his health burning the proverbial midnight oil for the good of the institution founded by his grandfather was left with no option. He accepted the offer of his old friend Nawab Hamidullah Khan the ruler of Bhopal to be the Education Minister of his State. Ross Masud spent rest of his life in Riaz Manzil, Bhopal which is immortalized in the annals of literature as it is here that his admirer, the poet Mohammed Iqbal composed his magnum opus “Javednama” while enjoying his honoured friend’s hospitality. Masud died a premature death at fort-eight following cardiac complications caused no doubt by his unremitting love of labour at Aligarh. Whether he died a man satisfied at having done his best to take a family legacy to hitherto unexpected heights or a man disappointed with an ungrateful community is something we will never know for the answer went with him to his grave next to his legendary grandfather and genius father in the precincts of the University mosque at Aligarh.

A man of strong convictions and unswerving commitment to excellence and integrity, Masud does not appear to have left any regular publication. His philosophy of life is however enshrined in the by-words which he chose for his stationary – al mulko wa sidqo waddeen (the country, the truth, the faith). He was a remarkably articulate man both in writing and speeches. His letters addressed to friends and admires like “Maulana” Mahommed Ali “Jauhar”, Poet Mohammed Iqbal and Jawaharlal Nehru deserve to be published; the same holds good for his speeches which lie scattered. One can only hope that the Aligarh Muslim University will wake up to redeem a long forgotten enormous debt of gratitude to one of its real founders. One can part with this piece by pointing out the irony that while Nawab Masood Jung Bahadur Sir Syed Ross Masud has been and well and truly forgotten, aficionados of English literature are vaguely familiar with his name as the one to whom his good friend E.M Foster had dedicated his work A Passage to India .

[1] Besides, Iqbal’s elegy, Masood Marhoom in Armughan-i-Hijaz affords him a degree of ‘preservation’

*Mr. Naved Masood is an AMU Alum and a senior Civil Servant in Govt. of India and he is based in New Delhi. He can be reached at naved.masood@gmail.com

Mohammad Sajjad*

This great scholar of Medieval Indian history and one of the iconic historians [to have been produced by the Aligarh Muslim University’s famous Department of History,the Centre of Advanced Study],breathed his last on Friday, 15th April 2011. Thanks to my teacher Mr. M. K. Zaman, I received the news of Qaisar's sad demise. It was barely two hours before his burial, and I immediately sms-ed, besides others, some of those batch-mates of mine who had been taught by him an optional course on Mughal Economy in the MA final year. Most of those students are highly placed now: two are Deputy Secretary in the Union ministry/ Parliament secretariat, another one is an author of an acclaimed book on 18thcentury western India and is teaching in an American university, and …..

Not many colleagues/ students of the late Prof. A. J. Qaisar (present in Aligarh ) participated in his last rites. The AMU’s Deptt. of History, in terms of the number of teachers, research scholars, and other students has got quite a huge strength. Then, why this small participation in his burial, despite the fact that theMuslim (emphasis intended) University claims to be agehwaarah (cradle) of a particular kind of culture-tehzeeb, tamaddun? Was it because Prof. Qaisar was a reclusive as well as a bit eccentric man? Was it because he was not a power-wielding academician who could indulge in manipulations of recruitments, promotions, ghost authorships, award of lucrative research projects regardless of the merit,…? Was it because Prof. Qaisar was not among those who run or follow lobbies of the unscrupulous power-politics within the kingdom of AMU ?

In short, this kind of treatment meted out to the death of the historian of such a high repute throws many questions about the way we the AMU people are living. We have been ‘witness’ to other such “frailties”. We are told that the death of somebody’s elephant was given the space of obituary in a well meaning newspaper and this was done by spacing out the obituary of a great historian, Jadunath Sarkar. We are also told that in AMU the death of a teacher’s daughter had failed to receive as many condolences as the death of the dog of another colleague. If that is so, then, we must admit that in the industry of knowledge, power-play hasassumed strange and draculous, and shamefulforms.
In AMU, teacher and student politics operates with considerable regional saliency. On these primordial bases, the regional satraps expect/ demand favours, privileges, votes, administrative assignments. But even these people were conspicuous by their absence, even in this election season (on 28th April 2011, elections of the AMU Teachers' Association is going to be held). Probably because, such a big historian was free from all such narrowness, chauvinism and bigotry. While teaching us, as asides, he had shared with us, “I am a votary of a specific kind of Sufism whereby
I have cocktailed it with a happy dose of Marxism”.

In the MA I yr, he was my tutor of the then compulsory course of Historiography and Historical Method, taught by Prof. Shireen Moosvi.Qaisar assigned me to write a Term Paper on “Causation in History: a Case Study of the movement of 1857”. He made me show him 3-4 drafts of the Term Paper, only then it could be approved by him, that too only with inadequate satisfaction of the rigorous task-master that Prof. Qaisar was. As was his temperament, on showing each draft, he scolded me, but, needless to say, that made me learn a lot. In the MA II yr, it was this thing about him, which prompted me to opt for a course taught by him: Mughal Economy. I was a student of Modern Indian history, so he enquired a lot about my choice of a course of Medieval Indian History, apparently, only apparently, discouraging me to opt it. I stood firm. Other friends of mine followed, and the “dead” optional course became “alive” after a long time.

It was he who persuaded me to opt for a course on the Working Class Movements in Colonial India, taught by Dr Ishrat Alam, currently, Member Secretary, ICHR, New Delhi (and son of former Union Minister late Rafiq Alam of Kishanganj, Bihar). He had great expectations from Dr Alam. If memory serves me right, he had already retired and was teaching us on post-retirement employment/ extension. He shared a lot about the regressive factional politicking within the Department. Soon, he had to forego the extension to quit in angst and disgust. He warned us that in the ‘bad’ world of academics, self-respect is an impediment in the way of one’s rise, yet one must take care of one’s self-respect. It is too valuable. He had a little of stammering, but that did not come in the way of good communicator in him. One person he admired a lot was Prof. Nurul Hasan and hisbegum, who according to him showered a lot of affections. Qaisar had great regards for the couple. He co-edited a felicitation volume for Prof. Nurul Hasan (who becameUnion Minister of Education and then Governor of West Bengal). This was Qaisar's tribute to the teacher he was so fond of.

He convinced us to develop and refine the habits of reading novels in order to comprehend and articulate history in a better way. He gifted us a copy of Lady Chatterly’s Lover (besides many copies of the journalSocial Scientist, which we gifted to the Library of the CAS History, AMU). He was very particular about his students. Students, shabbily dressed, careless about shaving etc were intolerable for him. He used to say, “most successful are the men who shave daily”.

Born in 1929 at Chapra, he did his schooling from the prestigious Zilla School of Chapra (Saran), Bihar, and then did his Intermediate Science from the Patna Science College, and then in graduation he switched over to History in AMU. As a Fulbright scholar, he got the opportunity to visit better provisioned universities of the Western world, and produced highly acclaimed works, besides others, on the history of technology, published his book, The Indian Response to European Technology, from the Oxford University Press. He had also presided over the Medieval History section of the Indian History Congress, and the lecture on the "exposure-response syndrome" became a popular expression in the Indian History. Besides the conventional sources, he made extensive as well as intensive use of the Mughal paintings to reconstruct history, meticulously and incisively dissecting/ analysing the technological devices shown in the paintings. Despite all his accomplishments, he regretted that he could not put in as much of labour as to reach somewhere the stature of Prof. Irfan Habib. He used to share anecdotes of the labour and genius of Prof. Irfan Habib, as a student, in order to inspire us.

Prof. Qaisar was nostalgic about his roots. He missed the specific dishes of Bihar like a pakwaancalled thekuwa. He led a very simple life. Once, on Baqr Eid, we visited his residence in Zakir Bagh behind the Faculty of Arts, AMU. The only thing he could offer us was honey. It was a great disappointment for us, but that is what Prof. A. J. Qaisar was.
He claimed to be a descendent of the clan of the first President of the Indian Republic, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, whose grandfather’s brother had converted to Islam, and settled in Motihari (Champaran). This is corroborated by Prof. Shakeelur Rahman’s Urdu autobiography, Aashram. They belonged to same clan. Prof. Rahman is a big name in aesthetic criticism of Urdu literature, was the vice chancellor of two universities of Bihar, where he took on a Congress bigwig, Nagendra Jha, who was a teacher in the Mithila Univ. Darbhanga, and the then Education Minister of Bihar, and Rahman, the VC, refused to bow down before the politician in 1988-89; then Rahman was elected to the Lok Sabha from Darbhanga in 1989, and went on to become Union Minister of Health in Chandrashekhar’s cabinet. It is a lesser known fact that RJD's Fatmi is Rahman’s successor in the non-Congress politics of Darbhanga.
Another member of Qaisar’s clan, Prof. Najmul Hoda, author of some books on Urdu literary criticism, is also a poet. He taught in the Bihar University, Muzaffarpur, as well as in the Madras University. Now lives in Muzaffarpur, and he is a highly respected scholar in Muzaffarpur. They have been mentioned inAashram. The Sequel of this autobiography is still awaited quite eagerly.

The late Prof. Qaisar is survived by his wife Zareena (who taught History in the Senior Secondary School of AMU), and two sons (Eeraj and Rahul), both settled abroad as successful professionals.

One recalls Shelley's poem:

*Dr Mohammad Sajjad is an AMU Alum and Lecturer at Centre of Advanced Study in History in Aligarh Muslim University (India). He can be reached at sajjad.history@yahoo.com

Syed M. Naseem*

The atmosphere at the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) has been vitiated over the last several months by controversies on the issue of the Vice-Chancellor's use or abuse of power and gross disruptive behavior by few students who possibly are motivated by Aligarh mafia (a nexus of students, staff, and goons of Aligarh). Clashes, abusing, fighting, dharnas, strikes etc has become a common affair at AMU these days. University has become a political field, for irresponsible students, pathetic retired teachers, and spent politicians of regional political parties. Persistent interference of student leaders in AMU management should be blamed for deteriorating law and order situation and conditions at AMU. A real power struggle is on the move and is on horizon.

Appointment of incompetent teachers along with recruitment of exemplary-hard-working teachers in administration and management, and the poor intake quality of the students lead to a proportionate rise in indiscipline and a depressing slide down in the university reputation. Uninterrupted and serious disturbances in the campus created an image in the country that AMU is one of the institutions always a center of unrest or chaos.

A brief description of disruptive activities of AMU student’s leaders under various VCs administration is as follows:

Under severe pressure from the University staff and students, Vice Chancellor Prof. Naseem Farooqui (Oct. 15, 1990 to Nov. 15, 1994) called general election without any valid union constitution. The outcome of the election was disastrous. Prof. Naseem Farooqui, himself became the prisoner of the students. University staff started playing students against vice chancellor and vice versa. The office bearers of the union virtually took control of the university, especially, admission and examination. They humiliated and beaten teachers publicly and vice chancellor could not come to their help.

Based on the recommendation of the Electoral College, Mr. Mahmoodur Rahman reconstituted the student's union on August 28, 1997. He gave very stern warning to students for immediate dismissal of the union, for interference in the university affairs.

Mr. Mohammad Hamid Ansari sahib time was also a very turbulent period because of so-called leaders of AMU students. Many incidents happened and were all published in various National and local newspapers. Hamid Ansari sahib decided not to renew the Union partly due to lack of approved Union constitution and he also realized that the Union might not serve the purpose for which it was established. Student leader’s aspirant for Union leadership did not shy away from their continuous demands for the restoration of union. Many serious mishaps happened during his tenure at AMU.

Revolver fight in Shamshad Market, couple of students injured, followed by murderous attack on Mr. Saeed-ur-Rahman, Proctor AMU, one proctorial staff injured by bullet, city police raided AMU hostels and confiscated guns and other lethal armaments. A student was kidnapped and kept in Sir Syed Hall; ransom money was demanded from the parents. University Engineer also received a threatening letter in which a large sum was demanded. Prof. Jafri, former Pro Vice Chancellor was dragged from the Arts faculty and a senior professor in Engineering College was publicly beaten by student leaders on the University Road. On gunpoint students asked teacher to improve their grade in Psychology Department. A heinous murder was committed on the university road; robbery and theft by students were frequent. Student leaders (commonly known as Admission Mafia) were very active at AMU campus. Professor Aziz Khan, controller of the Admission and examination was beaten by those hooligans. Semester examination was postponed because of the student's demand. Hooligans destroyed University properties. Unauthorized people were back in the hostels. One provost was willing to pay 5, 000 rupees to anybody who could take out those miscreants from Sulaiman Hall or any Hall of the residence. Proctor, Saeed-ur-Rahman resigned due to fast deteriorating law and order situation at campus and replaced by Proctor Ajmal Khan.

Vice Chancellor Mr. Naseem Ahmad sahib also decided not to hold the election in his first year of his office, mostly because of total lack of interest among majority of students who want to concentrate on their studies rather than get involved in union politics. However he stumbled to the pressure and called for election (November 10, 06). Mr. Nafees, from his own district of Azamgarh was elected President, he was a well known ruffian, who publicly snubbed and detained, the whole AMU administration in a room for several hours demanding leniency of attendance requirement for his friend in F/O Management. Unfortunately, Naseem Ahmad sahib succumbed and ceded to his demand and command. Once again, Students Union through Mr. Nafees started abusing the AMU administration including VC, who was made powerless by the students union. Finally student’s mafia gave him and his wife looming death, he escaped to Delhi and resigned a week before his actual retirement.

Current Vice Chancellor Prof. Aziz is now the victim of AMUSU leaders. He will pay dearly for his mistake to concede to the demands for the Union election. This resulted in the occupation of student's union by detrimental group of students, and the Union platform became a source of agitation and unrest. Evidently uncompromising students are back on scene and will continue their dharna and disruption of AMU functioning till admission is completed. I hope the university administration this time will take stern action to bring peace in the campus and to put the university back to normalcy for 80% students who are career-oriented and serious in their studies.

*Syed M. Naseem is an AMU alum based in Washington DC USA and can be reached at syed_naseem2003@yahoo.com

Afzal Usmani
simaalusmani@gmail.com

Janab Syed Naseem Sahab,

Assalam-o-Alaikum,

First of all we are thankful for a brief over view of AMU campus for last 20 years. Interestingly this is the period when either I was in the campus or have been associated with it very closely.

My intention is not to contradict your observation, but to complement it so that we can have the actual and complete information.

On 15th October 1990, when Prof. M.N Farooqui joined as Vice-Chancellor of AMU Aligarh, an elected AMU Students Union was already existing with Mr. Hafiz Mohd Usman, Mr. Khalid Masood and Mr. Ayub Shabab as President, Vice-President and Honorary Secretary respectively. As per the charter of AMU Students Union, a fresh union election was conducted in 1991 and Mr. S.M. Anwar Hussain, Mr. S.M. Haider Asad and Mr. Fakhrey Ahmad Shobi were elected as President, Vice-President and Secretary respectively. Similarly another election was held just after 1 year in Jan/Feb 1992 and Mr. HM Azam Beg, Mr. Hasan Aziz Amir and Mr. Syed Abrar Ahmad "Cheeku" were elected as President, Vice-President and Secretary respectively.

During this period, for unknown reasons Prof. M.N. Farooqi and his administration tried to run a parallel Students Union by patronizing those candidates who had lost AMUSU election for President and VP , viz. Mr. Khalid Masood and Mr. Azam Mir Khan. In Jan/Feb 1993, after completing 1 year of term, the elected Students Union was dissolved and Prof. Farooqi installed an Ad hoc Students Union with Mr. Hafiz Irshad Ahmad as the President.

The Ad hoc Union declared the election in April 1993. However, just2-3 days before voting, a very unfortunate incident took place in Shamshad Market and police opened fire and one student, who was very well known to me, Mr. Jaunaid Shamshad died. Another student and my batch mate Meraj Fakhri was injured. Due to this unfortunate incident University was shut down and hence the elections postponed. However, the ad hoc Students Union under the President ship of Mr. Hafiz Irshad Ahmad continued to function for almost a year after that and upon Hafiz Irshad Ahmad's election to UP Assembly from Gopalpur, Azamgarh and his deputy Kr. Arif Ali Khan's sentence to jail, the Ad hoc AMU Students Union was dissolved and another Adhoc Union was appointed to conduct the election. This lead to the last election of Prof. M.N. Farooqi's tenure and Mr. Khalid Masood finally won President ship in his 3rd bid for President AMUSU. Mr. Merajuddin Ahmad was elected VP and Mr. Mohd Aslam was Secretary of AMUSU.

In total, Prof. Farooqi ordered 4 general elections in 4 years, and installed 2 Ad hoc Students Union.

I do not think he was under any pressure to have ordered 4 general elections in 4 years and also installed 2 Ad hoc Students Union.

In fact it was due to Prof. M.N. Farooqui’s decision to suspend President of AMUSU Mr. HM Azam Beg just days before the First International Sir Syed Day in 1992, that the campus was again embroiled in controversies and restlessness. That resulted in the disruption of the entire Celebration and finally the Sir Syed Day dinner of Cricket Pavilion was cancelled by the VC and was organized in respective Halls of residence. Although the suspension of President AMUSU, Mr. Beg was revoked a day or two before Sir Syed Day, it was by now too late and the First International Sir Syed Day, which was incidentally also the 175th Birth Anniversary of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, fell victim to AMU Campus Politics. The main reason of suspension of President of AMUSU was make his deputy as President on the behest of one his main figure of AMU Administration.

The turmoil in AMU campus during Prof. Farooqui's tenure was started when his first PVC (a number of PVCs served under Prof. Farooqui), an AMU alum and IIT Delhi faculty Prof. S.M. Yahya resigned from his position, just after completing one year in May 1992. In his resignation letter, Prof. Yahya clearly complained about a group of students lead by Mr. Merajuddin Ahmad who misbehaved with him. Prof. Farooqi could not take any action against those as they were patronized by a senior faculty who was a key aspirant of the position of Pro-Vice Chancellor. On June 1st 1992, when AMU Students Union was giving a farewell to Prof. S.M. Yahya, the same group of students lead by Mr. Merajuddin Ahmad attacked Students Union Hall, opened fire, beat up president and his few supporters and once again misbehaved with Prof. S.M. Yahya. It was well known that who opened fire and who misbehaved with AMUSU President and outgoing PVC Prof. Yahya, but no action was taken against the culprit.

When the same Students Union reached to AMU Vice-Chancellors office to ask to take action against those culprits, Prof. Farooqi's parallel Students Union group lead by Mr. Khalid Masood came with firearms in their hands to save Prof. Farooqi. Of course due to firearms, general students present with AMUSU were scared and only two brave students, Mr. Faheem Ahmad Khan "Rabbu" and Zubair Ahmad Khan saved President AMUSU and left the scene. Prof. Farooqi openly thanked Mr. Khalid Masood to save his life.

We fail to understand, how the elected Students Union which was only protesting could have posed a danger to the life of Prof Farooqi. The remaining 2 1/2 years, he was completely in the clutches of Mr. Khalid Masood and paid the debt which he owed to him for his 1st June 1992 act. This was a well know fact in the campus during that time that Mr. Khalid Masood is patronized by AMU VC, Mr. Merajuddin Ahmaed who openly misbehaved with Prof. S.M. Yahya was patronized by Pro-Vice Chancellor and Mr. Azam Mir Khan was patronized by Mrs. Najma Akhtar, Controller of Examination and Admission.

Finally when Prof. Farooqi resigned in Nov 1994. His last order was even more amazing/ surprising.

Prof. Farooqi removed Prof. Abul Hasan Siddiqi as Pro-Vice Chancellor, appointed Prof. Shamim Ahmad (popularly known as Prof. Khwaja Shamim) as PVC. Removed Mrs. Najma Akhtar from the position of Controller of Admission and Examination and appointed Prof. Humayun Murad as Controller of Admission and Examination.

Strangely though, he appointed Mrs. Najma Akhtar as Director of Academic Program (DAP), a position held by Prof. Farid Ghani during Prof. Farooqi's entire tenure. This position of DAP was almost a parallel position to PVC. DAP was a member of EC, Court and EC.

Here is a million dollar question;
How can Prof. Farooqi justify the appointment of a Non-Academic person as a Director of Academic Program of a Central University?

Do we think AMU Students Union was behind this?

"You reap what you sow"
I will give time to readers to go through it and correct me, wherever I may be wrong.

I will write about the tenure of Mr. Mahmoodur Rahman, Mr. Hamid Ansari, Mr. Naseem Ahmad and Prof. P.K. Abdul Azis and their association with AMU Students Union's affair in next phases.

Naved Masood*

Independence and partition of India brought massive transfer of populations. Movements of refuges were on predictable, communal lines. There were just a few cases where the communal movements were in the ‘wrong’ direction. To that microscopic group of mavericks belonged Mohammed Yunus who, forsaking wealth and family prestige, left his ‘native Pakistan’ for India and turned out to be of much help to the Indian Muslims.

Yunus is so intimately identified with the erstwhile North West Frontier Province or the NWFP - now Khyber Pakhtun Khwa that it may come as a surprise to many that he was not a Pathan! Born in 1916 in Abbobtabad, his father Haji Ghulam Samdani was an extremely wealthy man owning rights over vast tracts of forest and agricultural lands in Punjab, Kashmir and NWFP. One of the biggest government contractors of his time, he owned most of the legendary ‘Qissakhwani Bazar’, the nerve center of Peshawar. Samdani was a Mughal whose great-grandfather had migrated and settled down in Baramula, Kashmir in the latter half of the eighteenth century. One of the first from among Muslims of the region to have received western education, Samdani settled in Peshawar as a military contractor in the 1880s and never looked back. He was personally contacted by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan to bail out the MAO College after the institution was in the financial doldrums following a huge defalcation by Shyam Bihari Lal, a confidante of the founder. Apart from emerging as the wealthiest man of the NWFP, Samdani struck roots in the Pashtun area through his philanthropy and marriages including in the famous Charsadda family of the ‘frontier Gandhi’ Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. Indeed Yunus was the son of that mother and thus a ‘maternal Pathan. Some space has been devoted to the family details as this has a bearing on what Yunus made of his future life.

After an early education in Peshawar in an opulent but deeply religious atmosphere Yunus was dispatched to Aligarh to study in ‘Minto Circle’, more correctly the AMU Boys High School from where he passed the High School examination in 1932. He thereafter joined the Islamia College on a suggestion of its former Principal H. Martin (who was then Pro Vice Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University and is remembered as the coauthor of the famous “English Grammar and Composition” by Wren and Martin). Martin had astutely sensed that Yunus with had the right background to play a major role in the public affairs of that province at a future date. Even in his teens in Aligarh he was witty and quick with repartee which lasted a lifetime. Thus when Gandhiji visited the University in 1931, Yunus somehow clambered up the stage of the Students’ Union with an autograph book in hand. The Mahatma with a frown asked him why he was not wearing khadi to which the Peshawar lad replied without batting an eyelid that he was wearing his school uniform and obtained the coveted signature. What the young Peshawari had not disclosed was that there was no objection to the uniform being made of khadi!

He passed B.A from Islamia College, Peshawar. During the college days he was associated with the khudai khidmatgar (God’s servants) movement of the ‘frontier Gandhi’ with its emphasis on non violent resistance to the Raj, its emphasis on service of the poor and social reform. Soon after College he emerged as a prominent political activist and main spokesman of the movement who was an informal representative of Ghaffar Khan with whom he had become related (in the ‘oriental fashion’) with the marriage in 1935 of his elder brother Yahya with the only daughter of the great man. Yunus emerged as a major face of NWFP in rest of the country representing the province in Congress forums and espousing the cause of its economic development. He hosted Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Mohammed Ali Jinnah during their tour of the area and was equally active in Pashto speaking areas across the Durand line i.e. in South Afghanistan. He also fought shoulder to shoulder with the National Conference in the Kashmir valley for involvement of people in governance. Yunus was incarcerated in the Quit India movement (1942) and was released only three years later. His reminiscences of prisons were later published in Urdu as Qaidi ke Khat (letters of Prisoners). Following his release he worked zealously against the Muslim League and its demand for Pakistan. In 1946 elections an overwhelmingly Muslim electorate elected a Congress government in the province under ‘Doctor Khan Sahib’ the elder brother of the frontier Gandhi (NWFP was the only province where the dominant community, whether Hindu or Muslim, had voted against the sentiments of the relevant community elsewhere). The government did not survive for long as the aristocrats of the province engineered large scale defections. Yunus decided to move over to Kashmir to be at the forefront of the agitation against the Maharaja.

On the eve of the independence, disgusted with the volte face of the ‘blue blood’ of his community and the communal frenzy he heeded the advice of Nehru and his daughter (with whom he had grown so close as to be almost a member of the family) and decided to make the ‘divided India’ his home. In doing so he was foregoing considerable a fortune – the estate of Haji Ghulam Samdani, which despite its devolution to more than a dozen offspring, was substantial. Nehru offered him appointment in the Indian Foreign Service keeping in view the fact that his proclivity to call a spade a spade would not take him high in politics. Over the years he was envoy in Turkey, Indonesia, Iraq, Spain and Algeria and served twice in the Ministry of External Affairs. In 1971 he was appointed Commerce Secretary – a position he held with great distinction till his retirement in 1974. After his retirement he was the founder-Chairman of the Trade Fair Authority of India, a position he held till 1977 and again from 1980 till 1985 when he was nominated as Member of the Rajya Sabha for a period of six years. In 1974 when the Muslims of India were restive about the restoration of the ‘minority character’ of the Aligarh Muslim University and the then Education Minister, Prof Nurul Hasan had made it a ‘progressive’ versus reactionary’ affair Mrs. Indira Gandhi nominated him on the Executive Council of the University where he articulated the aspirations and views of the majority of Aligarh community. It is not intended here to give a ‘low down’ on his professional achievements but mention must be made of the great institution that he built in the form of Pragati Maidan – not only a landmark in the heart of Delhi but clearly among the worlds most prolific and efficient organizers of industry specific fares. The layout, the design of the halls, the infrastructure, carefully planned trees and shrubs all bear a testimony to his loving planning and eye for details. Above all, the initial team of personnel that he handpicked turned out to be a coordinated, well oiled machine of highly motivated professionals. The traditions and operating procedures laid down by him and his pioneer associates survive to this day and make the ITPO – the rechristened version of the TFI – a vibrant institution. Following a setback in his health Mohammed Yunus lived an increasingly sheltered life with increasingly limited mobility finally succumbing to the inevitable in 2001.

The curious reader could well ask whether what has been stated is all there is to his life or there is something special that earns him the right to be remembered a decade after his death and perpetuate his memory beyond his immediate family. The questions are natural and they deserve an answer – the answers are all in the affirmative.

There are three main reasons why Yunus deserves to be remembered by the country generally while the Indian Muslims need to be particularly aware of his life and time. These ‘reasons’ have to do with his specific achievements and traits and are: An extraordinarily forthright and brutally honest personality, standing by the Muslim community without any political agenda or ulterior motive and a great institution builder. His ‘baby’ presently called the India Trade Promotion Organization having already been briefly referred, the rest of this piece is devoted to the first two feathers to his cap.

Yunus had a unique personality which cannot be forgotten by anyone who came in contact with him. He was quite ‘direct’ in his conversations, something which Asians generally lack. This can be illustrated with a few anecdotes. In his autobiography Persons, Passions and Politics (1980, Vikas) he recounts the time he was Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs and had to deal with the local (British) representative of the Commonwealth Graves Commission and his Boss a pompous ex Brigadier of the British Army who had arrived from London ostensibly to inspect the various war cemeteries run by the Commission but really to express displeasure about Yunus’s refusal to accede to some unreasonable request of the local representative. The Brigadier, a typical ‘Colonel Blimp’ was an arrogant foul mouthed character still carrying hallucinations of ‘Pax Britannica’ with a disdain for the former ‘subject races’. In any case, the senior officer showed his displeasure to Yunus and asked him not to repeat ‘senseless arguments’ and added to good measure that India was being ‘more mulishly unreasonable’ than Germany and Italy were during the last war. Yunus calmly heard the man and politely asked, “is there anything further you Gentlemen wish to add before I give my final response’. The imperious ‘Colonel Blimp’ responded with disdain, “I am not interested in your last responses; I want the bloody thing done by tomorrow morning before I leave for home”. Our man than spoke, “You bunch of grave-diggers, how dare you compare my country to the fascists! Leave this very instant, or I will throw both of you out of this window!” He writes, “they made themselves scarce in no time; I started to laugh, and laughed uncontrollably”. This author knows of a similar episode on the authority of a very eminent personage (a very venerable civil servant, now in his 80s who in the best tradition of the bureaucracy is loathe to be identified; for the initiated, the narrator was then a Joint Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Secretariat). In early1975 the Prime Minister called a meeting to discuss the ongoing agitation against amendments made in the AMU Act 1n 1965 and for declaring the University a minority institution. The meeting was briefed by the Education Minister who explained that the agitation was being fomented by ‘reactionary elements’ within the University academics who did not wish the ‘progressive forces’ to lead the institution up the path of ‘growth and academic excellence’. Yunus, one of the invitees, interjected to ask the Minister to explain who the ‘reactionaries’ were. The reply was that they were the ones who ‘raised the bogey of Islam’. Yunus abruptly cut short the Minister and said “and Prime Minister, progressives are those who eat and drink during the month of Ramadan, do not offer Namaz and drink alcohol in the evenings in the privacy of their houses while discussing how best to further the agenda of the Minister!”. There was startled silence in the room with the Prime Minister barely stifling a smile started to furiously doodle on a pad.

Yunus increasingly acted as behind the scene spokesman of Muslims in the corridors of power with no personal ambition or even projecting himself in the public. His role in highlighting indiscriminate demolitions of houses of Muslims in the name of ‘slum clearance’ in old Delhi is not too well known but is acknowledged by, of all the persons, the ‘bulldozer man’ Jagmohan in his Rebuilding Shahjahanbad . This author is personally aware of cases where he took victims of police atrocities to the Prime Minister at a time when doing so (during the emergency) ran the risk of detention without trial. His vigorous espousing the cause of Aligarh academics and students for restructuring the governance charter of the AMU is not fully appreciated. Many who were active those days now concede that with a champion like Yunus they knew they had someone from the ‘establishment’ on their side and this prevented them from developing a negative attitude towards the secular Indian State. What is more, his transparent sympathy – and empathy – made the members of Muslim middle classes look to him as the honest broker faithfully projecting their grievances without any personal vested interest. This resulted in many a simmering discontent to escalate into public agitations.

A handsome man, not very tall but an overpowering presence, he could be assertive and polite at the same time; Yunus had an endearing personality with a propensity to laugh at himself. His fund of jokes and funny anecdotes was virtually inexhaustible. He was a great motivator of men and a good judge of character. He bore personal losses with great courage and fortitude (as was evident when his only offspring Adil Shaharyar died suddenly). The personality of Yunus can be summed up by narrating a personal experience of this author. In a function of the Delhi AMU Old Boys Association both he and Yunus arrived late and occupied the last row as the proceedings were well on way. The Organizers ran to escort Yunus to the front with our man saying that he should not move for three reasons: First seeing him people will get up and disturb the speaker, Prof Moonis Raza (VC Delhi University); Second as a late comer he was in the right place, the last row, and; (turning to me) yeh bechara bhee late aya hai soche ga mujhe saza milee or Yunus ko jaza yanee aage jaga milee!! (The sentence is not very easy to translate, but it should run something like “This poor chap (the author) is a late comer, too, if I shift to the front he will think that while he is punished Yunus is being rewarded for being late – the real pun lies in the rhyming of the words ‘saza’ and ‘jaza’ which cannot be translated).

*Mr. Naved Masood is an AMU Alum and a senior Civil Servant in Govt. of India and he is based in New Delhi. He can be reached at naved.masood@gmail.com

Being a student of Non-Life Sciences, I never had the opportunity to know and meet Prof. Abdul Majid Siddiqi Sahab. It was only after my friend Dr. Athar Habib Siddiqi wrote a small article on his life and contributions for www.aligarhmovement.com , I came to know about him. Since then I had a desire to see him in person during my visit to Aligarh but I was very unfortunate in this regard and only saw him when he stopped breathing so could not even ask for his blessings and dua. I received the sad news from my friend Dr. Athar Habib Siddiqi who recently moved to Hyderabad. I inquired about the residence of Prof. Siddiqi and paid a visit to his house and paid my tributes to the (Late) Prof. Siddiqi. Only person I knew at the place was his son Dr. Shahid Jameel. I knew and interacted Dr. Shahid Jameel for several years but for one or the other reasons, could not met him so far. It was my first meeting with him and that too at a very sad and tough moment of his life. (Late) Prof. Abdul Majid Siddiqi Sahab was fortunate enough to have a son like Dr. Shahid Jameel. I had a long due desire to talk to Dr. Shahid Jamil on different issues related to community in general and our beloved Alma Mater in particular. Of course it was not the right time to talk to him during this tough time. I am aware about few of charitable works where Dr. Shahid Jameel is actively involve. Hope and pray to get a chance to see him again and get enough time to discuss the pertaining issues and come up with some concrete steps to work together.

Janaza was after Asar prayer at Muslim University Graveyard. A large number of family members, friends and well wishers of (Late) Prof. Siddiqi were present for tadfeen and to pay their tributes. Few faces and names which I remember were Prof. Reyazur Rahman Khan Sherwani, Prof. Hashim Rizvi, Dr. Asim Rizvi, Prof. Fasih Ahmad Siddiqi, Dr. Rahat Abrar, Mr. Abdul Qadeer, Mr. Zeeshan Ahmad and Dr. Suhail Sabir (all from Aligarh), Mr. Zafar Iqbal (Former Indian Captain and Coach for national Hockey team), his brother Shamim Ahmad (K.S.A.) and Prof. Tariq Rizvi (US).

(Late) Prof. Abdul Majid Siddiqi was fortunate enough to have students like Dr. Fazal Khan, Dr. Aftab Ansari, Dr. Shahid Siddiqi and many more of their likes who organized a commemoration function in his memory in Washington DC area in US and released a book where they expressed their feelings and paid their gratitude to their beloved teacher. Through a friend I received a soft copy of the book. It was nostalgic to read the accounts of his students and family members and their love and respect forProf. Siddiqi. Hope this will become a tradition among us to pay the respect to our beloved teachers.

To know more about Prof. Abdul Majid Siddiqi, please visit;
http://aligarhmovement.com/aligarians/Abdul_Majid_Siddiqi

Dr. Shahid Jameel also writes his blog and you can read it at;

http://stonesandzones.blogspot.com/

By Prof. A.R. Kidwai*
Director, UGC Academic Staff College, AMU Aligarh

Scion of a family of religious scholars:

Dr. Muhammad Hashim Kidwai was born in 1921 in Lucknow in a family of religious scholars and civil servants. Both his father, Abdul Majeed and his grand father, Abdul Qadir were Deputy Collectors in the British India. They stood out for their piety, their integrity and their administrative acumen. On the other hand, his uncle and father-in-law, Maulana Abdul Majid Daryabadi, and his great grandfather, Mufti Mazhar Kareem won acclaim for their substantial contribution to Islamic religious scholarship.

Education:

Dr. Kidwai passed his High School from Govt. High School, Sitapur Intermediate from Christian College, Lucknow and earned his B.A. (Hons.) and M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Lucknow. He was awarded Ph.D. by the Aligarh Muslim University for his doctoral study on the early Islamic state.

His teaching career: He joined the Aligarh Muslim University in 1948 as Lecturer in the Dept. of Political Science and was appointed Reader in 1961. It is a great pity that while he served the AMU until 1982 with distinction, he was not elevated as Professor owing to the unhealthy and deplorable campus politics. Destiny however, had reserved higher positions for him. For, in 1984 he was elected Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) in recognition of his active, nay dynamic role in the Freedom Movement.

A genuine Muslim Nationalist: Since his student days he was drawn towards politics, though his father was part of the British state machinery. He joined the struggle for Independence and, did all that he could as a student activist for freeing his motherland from the yoke of the British. With the same aim he set U.P. Muslim Students Federation at the University of Lucknow. More intriguing, however, was his joining the Congress party in the heyday of Pakistan movement which had captured the imagination of Muslims even in the north India in 1940s. While swimming against the tide he strove with his heart and mind for promoting Muslim nationalism among fellow students at the University of Lucknow and in the wider community. In the then emotionally surcharged and volatile politicized atmosphere it was a seemingly suicidal, self - destructive step. However, he adhered consistently to his ideals of the united India and nationalism and put up with all the hardships in pursuing his mission. Rafi Ahmad Kidwai, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Dr Syed Mahmud were his mentors during this period. He managed to organize a band of Muslim students wedded to nationalism in the university which was quite an achievement in the face of the frenzy generally evoked by Muslim League. He had close contact with Rafi Ahmad Kidwai, especially from 1940 to 1947.

A Committed Muslim Activist: Notwithstanding being a staunch nationalist, he never compromised on any issue detrimental to the Indian Muslims. Throughout his career he always championed vigorously the causes dear to the Muslims – minority character of the Aligarh Muslim University, plight of Urdu in the Independent India, harrowing carnage of Muslims in communal riots in various parts of the country, Muslim Personal Law, especially in the context of the Shah Bano case and the outrageous demolition of the historic Babri Masjid. On these issues he never toed in a servile way the official party line of the Congress party. All along he expressed and conveyed the wishes of the Muslim community, even at the expense of incurring the displeasure of certain elements within Congress. He never forgave M.C. Chagla and Noorul Hasan for being treacherous to the Muslims in stripping the AMU of its minority character. As he was an M.P. (1984-1990) during the Shah Bano case, days he played a crucial role in persuading Rajiv Gandhi, the then Prime Minister, to ensure that the new legislation about the divorced Muslim woman did not run counter to any principle and norm of Islamic Shariah. Likewise, he testified before the Lucknow High Court about the existence of the Babri Masjid in which he had offered prayers. His crusade for the Muslim issues is on record – in the form of his numerous pieces published mostly in the English national dailies since 1970s to this day.

His contribution to scholarship: Apart from his pieces on current issues, he has authored several valuable books in both English and Urdu. His book on Rafi Ahmad Kidwai in both English and Urdu is a treasure house of information about the Freedom Movement and the role of nationalist Muslims in national politics. His series of books in Urdu on several topics related to Civics and Political Science has benefitted generations of Urdu-speaking students all over the country. Equally substantial is his annotatied editing of several volumes of the letters of his illustrious uncle, Maulana Abdul Majid Daryabadi. He made a mark also as a brilliant reviewer. Equipped with his enviable memory and thorough familiarity with the fairly recent Indian history, his reviews on the Freedom Movement and other facets of national life are read with much profit by the specialists and the lay alike. In some of his reviews on the recent Indian history he has pointed out numerous factual errors marring these and exposed the authors’ bias against Indian Muslims. At the AMU too, he criticized both the Muslim communalists and Muslim progressives and communists who indulged in Islam-bashing It is gratifying that a volume containing his more than seventy reviews on Urdu books was released in 2010 by Mr Hamid Ansari, Vice President, who happens to be his student. This volume is a testament to Dr. Kidwai’s sweeping scholarship, his assiduity and his religiosity.

Pivotal role in AMU’s corporate life:

Throughout his career he took a very keen interest in the residential life of the AMU. For years he served as Warden, Amin Hostel and later became the first Provost of Mohsinul Mulk (MM) Hall. As Proctor in 1965-1967 he rendered valuable services in restoring peace and cordiality on the campus that had been rocked by indiscipline. For more than two years he performed the twin arduous jobs of University Proctor and Provost, MM Hall. God has gifted him with such remarkable retentive memory that he managed to remember the names of all the students of his hall of residence and of his classes. He was the keeper of the Duty Society, that catered to helping the needy students. He was also elected President AMU Teaching Staff Association in 1978. His love for both his wards and students is immense and selfless. He spent most of his salary on sponsoring the education of even those students whom he hardly knew. His students hold him in much esteem and take pride in maintaining their ties with him even years after they completed their studies at the AMU. His concern, rather affection for students is so strong that he does not approve that any disciplinary action betaken against them. In view of his integrity he was appointed Treasurer of the Relief Committee set up to help the victims of communal riots in Aligarh in 1978.

Amid his varied contributions, his unswerving committment to the cause of Indian Muslims and his crusade for helping the Muslims in getting their due share in national life is the most glittering aspect of his role in pubic life. Indian Muslims stand in need of such selfless, committed mentors for playing their meaningful role in their own motherland, which is regrettably denied mostly to them. Dr. Kidwai’s example, in both word and deed, has been a beacon light amid the all-round darkness. May Allah grant him a long, happy life, enabling him further to keep waging this crucial battle for the Muslim community (Amin)

==================
*Professor Abdur Raheem Kidwai is a Professor of English and Director, UGC Academic Staff College, Aligarh Muslim University. He can be reached at sulaim_05@yahoo.co.in

Letters and Comments by Dr. Hashim Kidwai to Print Media

Chhote Sardar’
The title of “Chhote Sardar” has been conferred on Mr Narendra Modi, who has been responsible for the state-sponsored anti-Muslim pogrom and whose administration’s law and peace enforcing agencies actively helped the rioters in committing the worst kind of brutalities in Gujarat.
Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, the Bara Sardar far from being appreciative of the RSS, held very strong views against it as is evident from the following extracts from his letters:
“Militant communalism which was preached only a few months ago by many spokesmen of Maha Sabha, including men like Mahant Digvijaynath, Prof Ram Singh and Deshpande, could not be regarded but as a danger.
The same would apply to the RSS with the additional danger inherent in an organisation run in secret on military and semi-military lines”.
[Sardar Patel to Dr S.P. Mookerjee, May 4, 1948. Sardar Patel’s correspondence edited by Durga Das, Vol 6 page No. 64].

(Dr) M. HASHIM KIDWAI, ex-member, Rajya Sabha, New Delhi

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Politics of hatred & freedom of speech
It is really distressing that some political leaders, especially VHP leaders, are bent upon pursuing the politics of hatred and by their utterances they have put the nation to shame. In a democracy every individual has a right to express his or her views but this freedom of expression ends when the freedom of another individual begins and the rabid hate speak of a few political leaders cannot be tolerated by all right-thinking Indians.
Dr Parvin Togadia, General Secretary of the VHP, who happens to be a cancer specialist, heads the list of those who spread the cancer of communal hatred all around. His highly deplorable and sordid attacks on Ms Sonia Gandhi, Congress President, affects the entire country. We rightly boast of our great civilisation that has survived the onslaught of time and foreign rule, but this civilisation has not taught us to be uncivil or intolerate. The strenth of the Hindu religion comes from the fact that it has very much flexibility and encompasses all kinds of views.
Neither the traditions of the Indian civilisation nor teachings of the Hindu religion have taught Indians to speak like Togadia. Such persons with a particular kind of mindest do not have the mandate to speak on behalf of either all Hindus or on behalf of the Indians.

Dr M. HASHIM KIDWAI, New Delhi
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Guidelines ignored
The Press Council of India was set up as a watchdog. But there are a number of instances when the council issued guidelines which were treated with contempt by media houses.
In this era of super capitalism, the lever of control has been transferred from the hands of the editors to the marketing gurus for whom all that matters is competition and more and more business. Means don't matter, only the end does.
So in the process of profit making, no wonder it is becoming increasingly insensitive.
It is high time Parliament gave punitive powers to the Press Council of India to deal with media irresponsibility. The Indian media must introspect and rediscover the past. Remember the glorious role it played during the pre-independence era. And stay away from battles in television studios.

HASHIM KIDWAI
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Sir, — The Gujarat riots were a blot on India's fair face of secularism. So it is distressing that the UPA Government, wedded to secularism, should have taken up the visa issue with the U.S. Government. It should not have ignored the frequent reprimand by the Supreme Court, the media, the NHRC and NGOs at various platforms of Mr. Modi. On another front, the visa denial can also be seen as providing a reprieve to Mr. Modi when dissident activity in the Gujarat BJP was at its peak.

M. Hashim Kidwai,
New Delhi
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A mr. Hashim Kidwai has written19 that mr. Advani's claim that no namaz was offered in the Babri Masjid since 1936, a full thirteen years before the Hindu take-over, "is not based on facts". To substantiate his counter-claim, he brings up the most first-hand kind of evidence : "My father was posted at Faizabad as Deputy Collector from 1939 to 1941 and I, along with my mother and other members of my family, visited the Babari mosque in October 1939 and again in October 1941 and offered the Zuhar (noon) prayers there."
--------------------
Sir ? Some Muslim social reformers, outfits and Muslim intellectuals with little knowledge of Islam now question and condemn shariat courts? decisions pertaining to marriage, divorce and inheritance. Unfortunately, the media have been projecting them as the true exponents of Islam. In their zeal to denounce the courts, the media have forgotten that shariat courts have been functioning in Bihar for more than eight decades.
It will not be out of place to remind ourselves here of the unity conference held in Allahabad in 1932, when no Hindu leader had raised any objection to the Muslim proposal for setting up sharia or qazi courts. Madan Mohan Malviya, who cannot be accused of appeasing the Muslim community, was a moving force behind this conference. The Muslim demand for the setting up of such courts was referred to a sub-committee convened by K.N. Katju, who later became the defence minister of independent India and chief minister of Madhya Pradesh. The conference eventually accepted the Muslim proposal. The Congress, at its annual session in Karachi in 1931, had assured the minorities that they would be free to follow their personal laws, and the Indian Constitution later conferred this as a fundamental right of the minorities. Why the hue and cry over the shariat and qazi courts then?
Yours faithfully,

M. Hashim Kidwai, New Delhi

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Flip-flop again
Sir, -- Addressing the first post-election BJP Parliamentary Party meeting, Atal Bihari Vajpayee said that the NDA's drubbing in the Lok Sabha elections had little to do with the Gujarat riots and there was ample evidence to suggest otherwise. The spillover Muslim anger had benefited the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the RJD in U.P. and Bihar, he added. Yet on June 13 in Manali, he said that Mr. Modi and the Gujarat riots factor were responsible for the NDA defeat and that the BJP's National Executive at its Mumbai session would reconsider Gujarat and all related issues. But subsequently the BJP Parliamentary Board decided that the National Executive would not consider Gujarat and Mr. Modi.
Mr. Vajpayee took 27 months to come out with the view that Mr. Modi should have been sacked after the Gujarat riots and that in spite of his wanting to do so he could not because his hands were tied down and his mouth had been gagged by hardline forces all these years. What is most bewildering is that his concern still seems to have more to do with expediency and not morality and that there was not a word of regret for the genocide in Gujarat. What else than another instance of Mr. Vajpayee's flip-flop?

M. Hashim Kidwai,
C-501, Rose Wood Apartments,
Mayur Vihar,
Delhi - 110 091.
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Direct attack
Sir, -- The Union Human Resources Development Minister has justified the move of the University Grants Commission (which is interfering in the day-to-day affairs of universities not from any academic point of view but under the threat of monetary assistance to them) of imposing a common test for admission to professional courses. This is quite in consonance with the fascist designs of his party, the BJP. This move amounts to the total annihilation of the minority and special character of the Aligarh Muslim University. Jamia Milia and Hamdard University, the three universities of Muslims of India.
This is nothing but a direct attack on the fundamental rights of the minorities to establish and administer their educational institutions. The Aligarh Muslim University Amendment Act of 1981 has also guaranteed this right to the University to admit students to any course of study. This move clearly shows the real face and attitude of the BJP towards minorities, especially Muslims.

Dr. M. Hashim Kidwai
501, Rosewoods
Mayur Vihar
New Delhi - 110 091
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Electoral verdict

IT IS difficult to share your optimism (October 8), that after the electoral
verdict of 13th Lok Sabha, the country would have a stable Government. The
electorate has given only a fractured mandate and the BJP will have
difficulty managing 24 instead of its former 18 partners. Having very high
expectations of the Prime Minister is far from ground realities. He is a
leader who unfortunately lacks the three distinctive great qualities of his
distinguished predecessors —broad mindedness, determined will and the concern
for the welfare of the downtrodden.

M. HASHIM KIDWAI
Delhi
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Mukhauta again
DR M Hashim Kidwai
Source: Statesman
26/12/2004 Type: Website English
Keywords:
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?date=2004-12-26&usrsess=1&c...
Mukhauta again
Sir, — Atal Behari Vajpayee's contention that there is no difference between Hindutva and Bhartiyata, and that the whole debate over Hindutva vs Bhartiyata is irrelevant since there is no contradiction between the two, besides clarifying that he has no differences with LK Advani over ideology, makes it crystal clear that there is no difference between Vajpayee and other Hindu chauvinist leaders of the RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal brand, and his image of a liberal and moderate leader is nothing but a mask.
Vajpayee like other Hindu chauvinist leaders aims at converting India into a Hindu country, but he conveniently forgets that the overwhelming majority of our Hindu brethren are deadly opposed to the totally out of date sectarian Hindutva ideology by which he swears, as is evident from the Lok Sabha results in which his party had a debacle. — Yours, etc.,

DR M Hashim Kidwai,
New Delhi, 22 December.
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Moral of the mandate
Dr M Hashim Kidwai
Source: Pioneer
18/12/2003 Type: Website English
Keywords:
http://dailypioneer.com/editor.asp?edit=yes
Moral of the mandate
Sir—Certain conclusions emerge from the electoral verdict of the recently held Assembly polls in the four States. One, anti-incumbency proved very strong and opinion polls proved to be unreliable. Two, these elections were not about personalities. As has been rightly pointed out by Congress President Sonia Gandhi, the performance of her party's Governments had fallen short of people's expectations. Third, the BJP refrained from putting before the electorate the issue of Hindutva, by which it swears. This makes it abundantly clear that the party's sole aim is to gain political power even by sacrificing its ideology—Hindutva and Hindu Rashtra. This suggests opportunism of the worst kind. Four, there are some lessons for the Congress. Soft Hindutva proved to be fatal for it. Also, its State Governments should have had stricter control over the bureaucracy, which represents the main hurdle in the smooth functioning of democracy and is quite blind to popular aspirations. At the same time, the Congress should not antagonise Government karmacharis. In Rajasthan, its electoral debacle was largely on account of the latter's hostility towards the party. These results have also shown the weakness of the Congress organisation. The central leadership should, therefore, pay special attention to organisational strength. This it should do by transforming the party into a cadre-based organisation which maintains close contact with the masses by launching countrywide campaigns against communalism and deep-rooted and rampant corruption. The organisation should also expose the dismal performance of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led Government at the Centre, espouse popular causes and launch a crusade for socialist policies, a composite national culture and secularism through rallies, meetings and conferences. It should forge alliances with secular parties to fight the BJP, which stands for communalism and Hindu chauvinism. It must sever ties with those secular parties that have a tacit understanding with the BJP, and which fielded their candidates in order to damage the Congress's prospects, particularly in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.

Dr M Hashim Kidwai
Sir Syed Nagar, Aligarh

This was a keynote address delivered by Dr. Aslam Abdullah on Sir Syed Day organised by Aligarh Alumni Association of Northern California in 2009. Dr. Aslam Abdullah is Director of Islamic Center of Nevada US. He is one of the founder and Trustee of American Federation of Muslims of Indian Origin (AFMI).

Dr. Aslam Abdullah took admission in Aligarh Muslim University(AMU) in B.A. (Sociology). He joined the movement of Jai Prakash Narain and on 25th June 1977 he was arrested in Delhi and put behind bars for 18 months during Emergency imposed by Indian Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi. Officially he never got a degree from AMU Aligarh, but by heart he is among the true followers of Sir Syed and his mission and so a true Aligarian.

Similar things happened with (Late) Ali Sardar Jafri. He never completed his degree from AMU. It was only in 1986 when he received honorary degree from AMU. For his entire life he was among the true Aligarians.

It is a bit long but I will personally recommend you all to listen to it till end. I tried several times to edit it to make it short but it was very difficult for me to edit as each and every word is full of wisdom and knowledge about our beloved Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and his mission which is known as Aligarh Movement.

Naved Masood*

It is a pity that the passing away of Ahsan Raza Khan has been widely reported in the context of his supposedly being a teacher of President Hamid Karzai. He deserves to be mourned and remembered for other reasons. First, to set the record straight. Khan was not the teacher of Karzai who was a student of Political Science at Shimla. Khan was a kind of mentor to Karzai who gave emotional support and provided intellectual growth to a lonely Pakhtun boy from Kandahar.

Ahsan Raza Khan, born in Rampur in 1939 joined AMU in 1960 after passing B.A from the Government Raza Degree College in his native place. He passed M.A (History) from Aligarh in 1962 and joined as a Research Scholar in the History Department to work on Chieftains under Akbar. He was awarded PhD degree in 1971 which was published by the Institute of Advanced Studies, Simla in 1977 as "Chieftains under the Mughals during the reign of Akbar" and is now regarded as a seminal work. He joined as Lecturer Department of History in Rajasthan University in 1966 from where he moved to the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies Shimla a few years later and joined the Himachal Pradesh University in 1976 soon after its establishment and remained with the University for the rest of his career developing a fine center for education and research in Medieval History of the region. Lack of access to original source material impeded his personal research career but he turned out to be an inspiring teacher and research guide to scores of students from Punjab, Himachal and Haryana. He was the presiding deity of the Coffee House at Shimla which was the hub of the intellectuals of the place and where he made Hamid Karzai learn his own historical context - Khan had firm grasp over the history of 'Kabul Subah' during the Mughal empire.

A leader among Historians, he was for long a Member of the Council of the Indian Council of Historical Research. He played a very constructive role in updating History curriculum in school and was in the forefront of the efforts to communalize historiography. His other well known work, "The Ayodhya Syndrome" is a telling evidence of his commitment to the cause of non partisan historiography. It is a pity that his location at a 'marginal location' kept him away from the limelight though the prestigious Central University did him the honour of appointing him as an Honorary Professor there.

An obituary note is not the place to mention full facts, it may suffice to note that his non appointment as a teacher in Aligarh is in itself an instructive accounts and depicts the way in which extraneous considerations have always played a part in faculty appointments in the institution.

*Mr. Naved Masood is an AMU Alum and a senior Civil Servant in Govt. of India and he is based in New Delhi. He can be reached at naved.masood@gmail.com

By Afzal Usmani*

“When a boy winks and a girl smiles, information is exchanged in wireless mode”. This is how Prof. Mohammad Naseem Faruqui explained wireless communication while inaugurating “The cellular Radio and Mobile Communication (CRAM-92)”, a seminar in the Kennedy Auditorium of the Muslim University Aligarh in the winter of 1992. The event was organized by Department of Electronics Engineering; Aligarh Muslim University This is one of the best and easy to remember ways to explain wireless communication I have ever heard. This left a long lasting impact on me of Prof. Faruqui and his abilities to communicate. It is very sad news that Prof. Faruqui is no more with us. Even being such a good communicator, somehow the students, staff and the alumni could not receive his message and most part of his tenure ended up in disturbance and chaos. Even after so many disturbances and a chaotic situation, his efforts to bring Muslim University in 21st century could not be blocked by his detractors. Even though AMU campus faced a lot of turmoil and chaotic situation due to Demolition of Babri Masjid, riots in Aligarh, Police firing and death of a student, his mission to modernize Muslim University did not stop. He computerized and modernized the process of admission and examinations including Engineering, Medical and other competitive exams and the results of these competitions could be declared within few days of its occurrence. Introduced many modern professional course including, Masters in Finance (MFC), Masters in Tourism (MTA), Masters in International Business (MIBM), Masters in Food Technology (MFT) and B.Tech. in Computer Engineering. He paid special attention to the Department of Electronics Engineering and used to teach a paper of Digital Communication for M.Tech. He helped out of the way to establish “Center of Telematics and Research” under the Dept. of Electronics Engineering and purchased state of the art equipments of the time. He used to regularly visit the center to guide the students working at the center. It was his tenure which gave finest faculty members to the Department of Electronics Engineering at AMU Aligarh. People may disagree with me but I personally consider Prof. Mohammad Naseem Faruqui as the best Vice-Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University in last quarter of a century.

Mohammad Naseem Faruqui was born in district Sultanpur of United Province of British India in the family of Mr. Abdul Saleem Faruqui. After completing his primary education in Sultanpur, he joined Allahabad University for graduation before joining Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur in 1952. After completing his B.Tech, M.Tech and PhD from IIT Kharagpur, he joined his Alma mater as a Lecturer in 1958 in Department of Electrical Engineering and rose to Reader, Professor and finally Deputy Director of IIT Kharagpur before becoming Vice-Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University on 15th October 1990. He had published more than 35 research papers in national and International Journals and guided 4 students for PhD. His areas of interest were Digital Communication systems, Computer networking, Office automation, E-Governance, Image-Processing, Video & Speech Bandwidth Compression. After having an experience of more than three decades in teaching and research at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India, Prof. Faruqui took over as the Vice Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University on 15th October 1990 and served till December 15, 1994. After leaving AMU Aligarh he became Chairman of U.P. Minority Commission for a while and then moved to his favorite profession of Teaching and joined as Professor at University Putra Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. After a while he moved back to India and joined as Chief Executive Development at Institute of Management and Technology (IMT) Ghaziabad. He was awarded VASVIK Award for outstanding research, National Promotion award for development of AMD. He later joined Jaypee University of Engineering and Technology and Galgotia College of Engineering and Technology in Advisory role. He also served as Chair Professor - IIT Kharagpur Foundation. Prof. Faruqui also headed I.I.T. Foundations Project – “A computer and Internet access to every student in the hall rooms”. The project was the vision of Suhas Patil, an IIT graduate of 1965. This single project was to catapult IIT Kharagpur into the ranks of the most connected academic institutions in the world. In May 2002 along with Dr. K. C. Sahu, Prof. Faruqui was presented with Lifetime Achievement Awards by IIT Bombay in recognition for the 33 years he served at IIT Kharagpur in various capacities, including that of Dean and Deputy Director and later working on major projects for the Ministry of Defense.

Prof. Faruqui passed away on August 24, 2012 at Kanpur after a prolonged illness in Kanpur. His burial took place in Kanpur. He is survived by his widow Mrs. Swaleha Faruqui, a son Mr. Nadeem Faruqui and a daughter Sania Akhtar.

Prof. Faruqui wrote his memoire of his AMU Aligarh days as “My Days at Aligarh”. He was always in touch with the affairs of AMU Aligarh and was a member of AMUNetwork for a long time and wrote a very thoughtful article, “Aligarh Muslim University -- Search for Excellence” in December 2010.

My Days at Aligarh

Afzal Usmani is founder and webmaster of www.aligarhmovement.com and can be reached at simaalusmani@gmail.com

Aligarh Muslim University -- Search for Excellence- Prof. M. N. Faruqui

Quality, Creativity and Innovation - Prof. M. N. Faruqui

My sentiments and feelings for Late Professor M.N.Faruqui – A Tribute

University- What it should be - Prof. M. N. Faruqui

Obituary of a VC-AMU, Prof. M. N. Faruqi-Sad Story of a Fine Gentleman Betrayed

Contributions of Prof.M.N Faruqui to the Aligarh Muslim University