A symbol of syncretism

A symbol of syncretism
Mushirul Hasan

Few institutions have succeeded in retaining for long the impress of the ideal that gave them birth. They tend to become humdrum affairs, perhaps a little more efficient, but without the enthusiasm that gives life. The Jamia Millia Islamia retained some of the old inspiration and enthusiasm (Jawaharlal Nehru, in 1948).

Visiting the Dar al-ulum at Deoband last year, we found the atmosphere tense. Students and teachers alike were stricken with fear due to police harassment. One teacher told us, ``in the past we were aligned with the Congress and spearheaded the campaign against the Muslim League. Today, we are targeted as pro-Pakistan agents. This is free India's reward to our sacrifices during the liberation struggle.'' Likewise, the Nadwat al ulama in Lucknow, another Muslim centre with impeccable credentials, has been targeted, more recently by Bajrang Dal activists. Some years ago, the police raided its premises: the mission was to flush out suspected Kashmiris holding Pakistani passport. And now it is the turn of the Jamia, ``a lusty child of the non-cooperation'' (Nehru).

Innocent students have been brutally assaulted by the police and stigmatised as `ISI agents', `Pakistanis', `anti-nation.' They were rounded up and put in Tihar jail. How can one remind the cops lodged in Shrinivaspuri and Lajpat Nagar thanas of Jamia's nationalist record and its contribution to the freedom struggle? Who is there to tell them that Gandhi, the father of the nation, was one of its founders? Who will list its innumerable architects Ajmal Khan, M.A. Ansari, Devdas Gandhi, A. M. Khwaja, Zakir Husain and A.J. Kidwai? Finally, how can one communicate the significance of the following verse to them?:

Come along, I will show you what remains in the city's slaughter houseThese are the shrines of the pious, and here the graves of those with honesty and conviction.

When founded in October 1920 during the heady days of the Khilafat and non-cooperation days, the Jamia encapsulated two dominant trends. One was reflected in the anti-colonial activism of Muslim theologians; the other stream represented the politically radical segments of the western-educated intelligentsia. They were the ones who rejected the Aligarh Muslim University's pro-British proclivities and gravitated towards Gandhi and the Congress. In 1935, the Turkish author, Halide Edib, visited the campus in Okhla. Do you know what she found? She noticed the Jamia to be much nearer to the Gandhian movement than any other Muslim institution. She was spot on.

Do you know what the vice-chancellor, Mohammad Mujeeb, told the chairperson of that meeting, Mohammad Iqbal? The Muslims, he stated, must live and work with non-Muslims to realise common ideals of citizenship and culture. This has been the quintessential aspect of Indian nationalism.

Jamia's raison d'tre was to promote cultural integration, foster composite and syncretic values, and strengthen inter-community ties. As the first chancellor, Ajmal Khan, expected the students to know each other's culture: ``the firm foundation of a united Indian nationhood depends on this mutual understanding''. Dr Ansari, Congress president in 1927 and Jamia's chancellor for many years, often said that the future of India must be a field of co-operation between the followers of different faiths. He considered the brotherhood of man as the only real tie, and partition based on religion was, to his mind, artificial and arbitrary. This is the essence of what Gandhi, Nehru and S.C. Bose stood for. The fact is that the Jamia community, spearheaded by Zakir Husain, Mujeeb and Abid Husain, was convinced of its quintessential role as a national educational centre that had a critical part to play in the service of and in the shaping of a free and modern nation. The political landscape of many universities haschanged in recent years; the Jawaharlal Nehru University is no longer the left bastion. The Vishwa Bharati is not what it was during the days of Tagore.

The Jamia, in search of moral and political support after independence, could have turned into a quasi-religious or quasi-communal institution. But it remained secular and nationalist to the core. ``I look on this,'' claimed Mujeeb proudly, ``as a secular school.'' Over the decades, Jamia's essential character and orientation have remained intact despite the recent fundamentalist murmuring. As a central university, the Jamia adheres to the guidelines of the UGC in matters of recruitment and admission. Engineering, law, art, education, mass communication and scores of other disciplines are taught there. We, too, have our share of modern and traditional scholars.

Therefore, please don't conjure up the image of an Islamic institution where purdah is prescribed and theology is thrust down everybody's throat. Who knows, such images may have led the policedepartment and its managers in the Home Ministry to treat the Jamia students differently and to use the big lathi more freely.

Although persecuted and my entry to the university `banned' for almost four years by religious zealots, I find most colleagues and students ideologically no different from their counterparts in other centres of learning. There are right wing as well as liberal and left elements; there is space for `modernists' as well as traditionalists. This being the case, the Delhi police and its patrons in the political establishment will not succeed in their ill-conceived design to destroy the moral of the Jamia biradari (community). Remember, Jamia countered the Muslim League campaign and remained firmly anchored in the Indian educational and intellectual traditions. Remember, too, that Jamia withstood the fury of the angry mobs in 1947. That is why Gandhi described it ``like an oasis in the Sahara.'' Given this record, Jamia will doubtless overcome the present crisis. True, it will probably take a while for the wounds to be healed. Yet this is not the time to pay heed to the communal rhetoric. This is surely not theoccasion to allow unscrupulous politicians to dirty their hands in the muddy waters. Let the new vice-chancellor, an experienced administrator, settle in and pursue his intellectual agenda. Let him raise the university's academic profile, an agenda neglected by some of his predecessors. For this, he will need everybody's support and cooperation. In the long run, the fate of an institution will depend on how well its faculty negotiates with world-wide currents of intellectual development. As somebody who has a stake in the future of the institution, I hasten to add that the Jamia must therefore remain part of and not isolated from the intellectual mainstream.