By TwoCircles.net news desk,
New Delhi: The first and immediate victim to the September 2008 Batla House encounter in which two suspected terrorists, allegedly students of Jamia Millia Islamia, were killed, was Jamia itself as a section of media took no time maligning the image of the central university describing it ‘nursery of terror.’ Disheartened Jamia faculty, neighborhood and Jamia’s well-wishers among the academia immediately came out in support of the institution, and now they have come out with a book that describes the idea of Jamia. The articles in the book have been written in the backdrop of the encounter.
The book entitled the “The Idea of a University: Jamia Millia Islamia” has been edited by Jamia’s known face Rakhshanda Jalil (Director, Media & Culture, JMI) who has already several books to her credit. The book published by Aakar Books will be released on 28th April by former Ambassador Salman Haider in the new Faculty of Dentistry Building at Jamia.
“The book is a collection of articles written shortly after the encounter between the Special Branch of Delhi Police and a group of suspected terrorists in Batla House, in the neighborhood of Jamia Millia Islamia,” says Rakhshanda Jalil. Some are written by members of the Jamia faculty; others from the big world outside Jamia. Some contributors are teachers and academics, others are writers and thinkers.
“Some contributions are short, intuitive pieces, others longer, more insightful essays. Some make deeply personal observations about living and working in Jamia, others speak with fondness and regard for the institution and all it stands for. Most were written in the critical days immediately after the encounter; they are the ones that speak from the heart. Almost all, irrespective of their tone and tenor, are emphatic assertions of the ‘idea’ of Jamia – an idea that is in consonance with plural nationhood and composite culture,” Rakhshanda adds.
Giving reason to bringing out the articles in book form she says: “We felt the need to preserve these diverse writings by securing them between the covers of a book for two reasons. One, the September encounter is not over as far as this University is concerned; its effects are still being felt. It is taking us a long time to rub away the tar that has been painted on us for no fault of ours. That random incidents which happened in our vicinity should erase all that we have achieved and all that we have stood for in the eight decades of our existence, is a cause of real concern for all of us at the Jamia. The other reason to anthologize these scattered pieces was the composite, coherent, clear picture that emerges from within these pages.”
The contributors to the volume include: Martha Nussbaum, Sudhir Chandra, Mushirul Hasan, Mukul Kesavan, Githa Hariharan, Rumki Basu, Ayesha Siddiqa, Meher Fatima Hussain, Lakshmi Subramanian, Rakhshanda Jalil, among others.