Perhaps, Jamia Millia
Islamia’s administrative employees are busy, preparing to welcome Prime
Minister Narendra Modi to be the chief guest at its annual convocation program
to be held in December, with majority of its students and alumni seem to be
disappointed with the development.
Reason for
resentment I
find a very convincing reason for the resentment among the students and alumni
on inviting Modi in the background of his alleged hate speech against Jamia
that has been circulated on the social media. And when I watched it for the
first time I was surprised that how a person with such high political stature
can make such remarks against a minority university?
Deeply
grieved I
was deeply grieved by the fact that now Jamia’s reputation will be ruined, but
thanks to the people of my country that they understand our politicians pretty
well. It was in 2008, and then Gujrat Chief Minister (and now Prime Minister)
tried to defame my Alma Matter by associating our reputed university students
with terrorism.
The speech While addressing a large gathering in
Gujrat he had said, “There is a university in Delhi called Jamia Millia
Islamia. It has publicly announced that it will foot the legal fee of
terrorists involved in act. Go drown yourself. This Jamia Millia is being run
on government money and it is daring to spend money on lawyers to get
terrorists out of jail. When will this vote bank politics end?”
Batla House
incident Indeed,
Batla House incident was very unfortunate and it created a huge trust deficit
between Muslims and the political system.
A set of Muslim scholars
including politicians, social activists and religious leaders, humbly requested
Congress (then ruling party at State as well as in Centre) to set-up a Special
Investigation Team (SIT) for Batla House encounter but the Congress chose to be
silent. Some of the congress leaders responded that, if SIT is set-up then it
will give a wrong message to the police department but on the contrary,
associating my community with terror will not send a wrong message to the
Muslims youths and my fellow countrymen?
Why and how can Congress
be so selective in this sensitive issue and why did they only worry about
police and not about its people, which certainly casts a doubt on the system in
place.
Even this issue was raised
when the AAP formed its government in Delhi for the first and then second time
and with similar response.
Finally, BJP is in power
and now, can the BJP dare to set-up a SIT probe on Batla encounter? I am sure,
everyone will respect the verdict given by SIT and it will also help in trust
building of our fellow country mates.
Toughest calls for
BJP Debate
has already sparked even before any confirmation about the acceptance of
invitation from PMO Office. Arguably, it would be one of the toughest calls for
BJP and particularly to Prime Minister; whether he should grace the convocation
program or not.
But from a larger
perspective, I assume his upcoming decision will be primarily based on two
important perspectives.
Opportunity to
correct past mistakes First, he may take this opportunity to correct his own image
in Jamia and in particularly among the Muslim community as Jamia is one of the
largest minorities’ universities in the country.
Though, I am not sure,
whether his visit will help in correcting his own image or not, as I have been
noticing his silence on most of the controversial statements given by his
Parliamentarians and more importantly by senior ministers against Muslim
community.
Indeed, I find many other
things that can attract our PM for instance an opportunity for selfies which he
loves the most. Secondly, there is a very high chance that PMO may issue an
official letter saying that PM schedule is very tight and despite of his strong
desire he couldn’t attend the upcoming convocation program.
At the same time, BJP will
also consider the fact that if Narendra Modi visits Jamia then opposition
leaders if not Dr Shashi Throorr then surely Mani Shankar Aiyar may argue that
at first he criticized and now he (PM) is going to impress minority community.
This is why I believe it
would be one of the toughest calls for BJP to make since the party has come in
full majority. Based on these facts, I assume BJP would try to analyse each
pros and cons at a very micro level and it need econometric, statistics and
keen mathematical calculations for final call.
I tried to understand the
entire issue on Prime Minister invite at a very micro level. I found several
reasons that needed to be fixed before PMO accepts invitation or else I am
afraid that students will be disgraced by PM visit?
Icing on the
cake Probably,
I will not disagree with the fact that most of the students dream to receive
their degrees from reputed personalities like President, Prime Minister and
Education Minister or any other dignitaries? Taking a university degree is life
time memory and who would not like to capture their life time memory in a
camera?
Interestingly, a picture
on convocation program with Indian Prime Minister would be no less than icing
on the cake and particularly when Prime Minister himself is so fond of
selfies.
A week back, I was on my
research visit to India and luckily I got an opportunity to discuss about PM
invitation with alumnus and students. After discussion, I came to a conclusion
that majority of us are not pleased with university decision to invite Modi.
PM’s visit a
positive call? But a small section of students supporting the motion said the PM’s visit
is a positive call as they feels his visit will bring university in limelight
and also university can get an additional funding from centre.
One of alumnus, Adeel
Ahmad said he is disappointed with the fact that university has sent him
invitation but would be more than happy if Prime Minister can offer auction
streak like Bihar in Jamia.
Campus
divided I
laughed for a while and said funding for Central universities comes under MHRD
and then he said on lighter note that even foreign affairs come under the MEA
but our External Minister merely get chance to visit overseas. So, from
this perspective, yes there could be chances of additional funding for Jamia and
surely, I will cheer if we receive it any additional funding for university
development. Some of students including Faisal Saleem (alumnus) said that if
Jamia didn’t withdraw its invitation then he will consider unfortunate to be
part of this reputed university in the past. Qasim said the PM’s visit is
welcome call but only after his apology for his hate speech. We need to move on
but at the same time an unconditional apology must be offered by the Prime
Minister. Another student, Ahmed Bilal said Modi sparked controversies
regarding Jamia to just please a set of right wing groups and therefore
it merely matters whether PM grace the occasion or not. A group of university
students said they are against hatred politics but if he has been invited by
the Jamia then they welcome his visit.
Kamil Khan said, Modi has
lost his credibility and now people do not trust him any more as he didn’t
delivered as per his promises and therefore his visits doesn’t matter at all. Now,
I would like to ask students and alumni of my own university that why you want
to protest PM on his visit? Does it make any sense now? Is PM, coming to our
convocation programme on own will? Did he approach our university for any kind
of invitation? The answered to above all posed question is no.
Why shall we blame
PM Then
why shall we blame our Prime Minister, after all we have given him mandate. If
you really want to blame somebody then you must blame Jamia higher authorities
for sending an official letter of invitation to PMO. I cannot understand that
what made our authorities to invite him to the university campus and
particularly on such an important occasion.
I tried to figure out, but
the reason which came closest to my mind is fascination among authorities for a
selfie with the PM or there may be some political pressure on authorities to
invite him as Uttar Pradesh election is coming soon. One cannot ignore the fact
that a huge number of students are enrolled in this university from Uttar
Pradesh. So, is this invitation politically motivated? Though, it would be too
early to come with any conclusion.
VC should give
explanation We, students and alumnus are expecting an official explanation from VC on
this invitation. I would like to ask our Vice Chancellor, do you support Modi’s
2008 alleged hate speech? Don’t you feel disgusted when your students are
falsely allegedly linked with terrorism? Aren’t you ashamed for inviting PM in
convocation program? If you do not withdraw your invitation, then soon we will
go on dharna and in case if you do not allows us to protest in a very peaceful
manner then I challenge you for its consequences. We are peace lovers and
therefore our protest will be peaceful.
Finally, I would like to
convey my hearties message to our Prime Minister. Dear Prime Minister, Jamia
Millia is one of the Central universities of India and it maintains a very high
reputation in academia. For instance, this year 149,148 applications were
filled while seats are even less than 7000 and this competitive environment
shows students passion, zeal and enthusiasm to study in this university.
Nothing personal
against PM We
have nothing personal against PMO and we have always regarded our
constitutional bodies. Then why must of students and alumni are against to your
visit? Sorry, I must bring a few facts before you, to explain why there is
anger among us. First, you claimed that Jamia had funded the allegedly arrested
students in 2008 case but this is not true. Jamia never provided any financial
assistance to the arrested students and in fact money was collected by student
and local activists. Secondly, isn’t it true that a person is legally innocent
until proven guilty by the courts of law? When you made your full of hatred
speech then the case of two students were proceedings in our courts and even
prior to courts verdict, you gave your own verdict...In these circumstances,
what’s wrong even then Vice Chancellor had decided to support all legal battle
for university students? Based on these facts, we are expecting an
unconditional apology from your side.
Ahmad Tufail
Seoul, Korea
Note: This article was
first published in Okhla Times on 1st December 2015.
Link: http://www.okhlatimes.com/jmi-news/invite-to-modi-south-koreabased-jamia-alumnus-joins-debate-know-his-view011215.htm
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