With its origin deeply embedded in the nation’s freedom struggle, a hundred-and-four-year-old university has been under scathing attack in a seventy-eight-year-old Independent India whose prevailing socio-political order attempts to legitimize the very divisive forces that the country’s makers endeavoured to destabilize.
Jamia Millia Islamia, a central university in the sprawling megalopolis of Delhi, originally established in 1920 in the backdrop of a politically charged climate of the Non-Cooperation Movement at Aligarh has displayed an unflinching commitment to the original vision of the founding members of the university which was to enable socio-economic transformation of the common masses in general and the Muslims in particular through an indigenous education that is not trickled down the empire’s ideological machinery.
The inceptive aim of the university was to promote a sense of national unity and patriotism among the students to unite against the crown’s dominion over the undivided Indian territory and resources and champion the ideals of freedom, liberty, and the right to self-determination.
I must emphasize that the temporal and spatial position of the university have been specified to supplement an overarching argument that guides the piece. The argument is that the university has always maintained a no-love-lost relationship with any dispensation owing to its adherence to the principles of liberty, critical thinking, and rationality. The praxis of such progressive ideals has irked the ruling class since antiquity. Hence, it is not surprising that the university has constantly been subjected to horrendous vilification and slander for not conforming to the policies and practices of the state.
As a student who was admitted to the university in the Department of Sociology as an undergraduate student in the year 2021, I recall that the popular imagination of the campus in the minds of numerous parents was of an excessively militarized space where police brutality, religious schism, and violence are not startling occurrences. Much to the credit of sensationalist mainstream media houses, Jamia was labelled as an anti-national university that houses and hosts clandestine meetings of the lunatics to further separatism and radicalism. The reputation of the university which fares consistently well in the NIRF rankings and boasts of an extraordinary alumni base across departments and centres was tarnished to an almost irreparable extent during the Anti-CAA protests and the situation seems to deteriorate further.
However, the Anti-CAA protest was not an isolated case. Jamia Millia Islamia, as an institution has been targeted by the state authorities for a long. It was in May 2021 that the English Department of the university, at the behest of the Home Ministry, organized an online ‘anti-terrorism’ pledge ceremony. Similarly, many such administrative practices have been adopted to tame the so-called ‘Islamist’ and ‘terrorist’ tendencies of the students on the campus.
The university has also witnessed mass assault on over a hundred students in the year 2000 which has been described by many as the worst instance of police brutality since the times of emergency. Not to forget, the Batla House encounter in 2008 (which according to many human rights groups was orchestrated to serve vested political interests) had also discoloured the historic legacy of the university much before the Anti-CAA demonstrations. The most recent report which concluded that the minorities on the campus (Read Hindus) are discriminated against and frequently targeted and lured into proselytization for greater future benefits is therefore nothing but a mere addition to the political project of the state which aims to throttle free voice and critical thinking that intellectual spaces like Jamia Millia Islamia nurtures among students.
It is fitting at this point to attempt a deeper analysis of the fact-finding committee report on the status of the minorities in Jamia. According to the report, a lady while submitting her Ph.D. thesis was met with disparaging comments by the clerk who happens to be a Muslim. While it is a disgusting state of affairs, one must pay some attention to detail and zero in on the conclusion whether this discriminatory attitude is a case of internalized misogyny and sexism that is prevalent across the campuses and other spaces in our society or is an inherently communal case. While both angles are equally deplorable, eliminating the possibility of the former reason for the latter reeks of an inert political agenda that must not be overlooked.
Similarly, the case of caste minorities and tribal students forced to leave the campus due to discrimination might as well be true and should be thoroughly scrutinized. However, discriminatory attitudes towards minority groups in university spaces extend far beyond Jamia and point to a larger structural and infrastructural deficit in the education system that has failed to foster an inclusive and accommodating environment conducive to all sections of society. The report resorts to a reductionist analysis of such lingering systemic issues by essentializing the nature of all the cases in Jamia Millia Islamia through a communal lens which then, not only sheds murky light on the institution but also diverts our attention from the ubiquitous nature of these deep-seated issues.
As per the latest developments, claims of forced conversions have been categorically refuted by the university administration and if any of such claims are found to have any substantive basis in reality, the university has promised to deal with the issue with utmost sensitivity and sincerity. The new Vice-Chancellor has also reiterated his policy of zero-tolerance towards any form of discrimination on the campus. Such promptness and alacrity from the university officials are a testament to their faith in the secular fabric of the campus any attempts to disturb it, inevitably deserve punitive actions.
It is an unfortunate turn of events that a report that could have been more sophisticated and subtle in addressing the issues of identity-based discrimination which cripple the scope of upwards mobility of students belonging to marginalized communities has lent itself to a myopic political project. The university that has embraced and honed the multifarious talents of students through excellent faculty, resources, and peer groups has once again come on the radar and has once again been coerced to defend its position by virtue of its association with the values of free expression and critical thinking which are anathema to the status quo.
Ashay Raj is an alumnus of Jamia Millia Islamia and a Young India Fellow at Ashoka University. Raj writes at the intersection of culture, society, literature and politics.
