After Ayodhya, battle for AMU

It is ironic and hilarious of the Union government to challenge the minority status of the Aligarh Muslim University on the ground of secularism which has been delivered many a deadly blow after Independence None more decisive than Prime Minister Narendra Modi participating in the consecration ceremony of the idol at Ayodhyarsquos Ram Temple last weekShorn of all legalese the battle over AMU currently underway in the Supreme Court is at its core about altering the religious composition of the institution In case the Supreme Court deprives AMU of its minority status it will have to introduce reservation for the Schedules Castes Scheduled Tribes Other Backward Classes and the Economically Weaker SectionSuch a measure will lead to 60 per cent of AMUrsquos seats and faculty and nonfaculty posts being set aside for castebased reservation Through this route some backward caste Muslims may gain entry into AMU but their number will be small An institution overwhelmingly Muslim will undergo a dramatic change in its demographyCall it the Hinduisation of AMU or call it the secularisation of AMU as Hindutva will hypocritically insist Call it whatever you may this attempted transformation mirrors the change brought about after more than a century of dispute in the character of the Babri Masjid where now stands the grand Ram TempleAMU was conceived as an institution for providing modern education in an IndoIslamic environment But for one solitary year it never had a Muslim quota in admission AMU admits students in two categoriesmdashinternal and external For BA the internal category includes students who passed out from five AMUrun schools for MA students who graduated from AMUThe intake of students into AMU is split 5050 between internal and external categories Twenty per cent of the latter include SC and ST students children of AMU staff and alumni and those belonging to distant states It requires a sociological study to ascertain precisely why nonMuslims do not flock to AMU other than to its medical and engineering colleges It is most likely because nonMuslims do not wish to send their children to be educated in an IndoIslamic environment not even when the campus was under substantial Leftist influenceThe current battle for AMU has two milestones both connected to its admission policy In 1965 ViceChancellor Nawab Ali Yavar Jung refused to implement the Tyabji committeersquos recommendation to increase the internal quota in admission to engineering and medical colleges from 50 per cent to 75 per cent He was assaulted prompting the Union Education Minister M C Chagla to amend the AMU Act of 1920 for altering its governing structure One Azeez Basha among others went to the Supreme Court saying the government could not amend the AMU Act as the institution had a minority status and therefore it was the fundamental right of Muslims under Article 30 of the Constitution to administer itNo said the Supreme Court in 1967 arguing that the 1920 Act may have been enacted because of concerted Muslim efforts but that did not mean that the ldquoAligarh University when it came into being under the 1920 Act was established by the Muslim minorityrdquo Academic Violette Graff in a 1990 paper quoted constitutional lawyer H M Seervai describing the verdict as ldquoproductive of grave public mischiefrdquo and cited historian Tara Chand then in the Rajya Sabha saying that it was a ldquofalsification of historyrdquo to claim that Muslims did not establish AMUAfter 13 years of Muslim mobilisation and protest the AMU Act was amended in 1981 explicitly spelling out that the institution was established by Muslims Its minority status was deemed beyond doubt until in 2005 AMUrsquos admission policy for postgraduate degrees in engineering and medical courses was changed to provide 50 per cent of seats for Muslims and 25 per cent each for internal and external candidates The Muslim quota was based on the 1992 Supreme Court judgment in the St Stephenrsquos case that a minority institute could reserve 50 per cent of seats for the community that had established itThe new admission policy had the Union governmentrsquos consentA nonMuslim internal candidate appealed against the new admission policy in the Allahabad High Court which cited Azeez Basha to read down the 1981 amendment AMU went in appeal to the Supreme Court as also did the Union government Status quo was restored and the old admission policy was reintroduced In 2016 the Modi government withdrew its appeal saying it canrsquot be seen as ldquosetting up a minority institution in a secular staterdquomdasha State gasping to breathe secularly so to speak since 2014It is likely the review of the Azeez Basha case in the Supreme Court will be reserved for judgment this week A verdict annulling AMUrsquos minority status will become yet another moment of Hindutva triumphalism yet another proof of the Bharatiya Janata Party upholding the interests of SCs STs and OBCs Demoralised and downcast as Muslims are they will unlikely come to the streets to express their anguish In their isolation they will imagine with sadness the day when the Muslimness of AMU would be only reflected in the IndoIslamic architecture of its buildings which who knows maybe bulldozed one dayThe writer is a senior journalistSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper