By Shahidur Rashid Talukdar for TwoCircles.net
AMU Vice Chancellor Prof. PK Abdul Azis’s claim that “setting up of five Centers across the nation will transform the fate of excluded minority from development deficit to a life of dignified existence” does not seem very well-founded. In order to expect a great deal from these satellite campuses on behalf of the marginalized Muslim community one first needs to know the nature of those campuses.
As it has been clarified in the media that these centers will be simply branches of AMU – as a central university, rather than AMU – as a minority institution. Regarding one such campus the Chief Minister of Bihar made it amply clear that this setting up of AMU campus has little to do with the Muslims, as such. “There should not be any opposition to set up a branch of AMU at Kishanganj…It has nothing to do with any community,” Nitish Kumar told media persons. So if this is the nature of these centers one has a legitimate ground to doubt that they are going to help the Muslims substantially.
The fact that AMU still maintains an overall minority character is due partly to its history and partly to the lack of adequate awareness about the nature of AMU among people, in general. Until recently, AMU has been popularly viewed as a Muslim institution which results in the fact that more Muslim candidates take interest and hence get admission. But now after a former Vice Chancellors attempt to reserve 50% seats for minorities brought the issue to light and revealed the fact that AMU is not exactly a minority university. The issue is still in debate and awaiting the Supreme Court’s verdict. Despite the well-known historical fact that AMU has been set up by minorities for their betterment, the minority status of AMU is not clear yet.
Therefore, as of now, without any formal minority status, the AMU centers in various states will stand as educational institutions with no particular affiliation to the Muslim community. Being secular and fair centers, they will not be able to give preference to any community on the basis of religion only. So the only benefit from these centers the Muslim community gets is the physical proximity. To some, it may appear that Physical proximity to a center of learning may reduce some of the constraints from ones attending the university, but such proximity hardly qualifies one for admission to the university.
After all, these establishments are going to be operational at bachelor’s and master’s level through open competition. So only those who are competent enough to secure admission to those programs, irrespective of their religious identities, will get there. Just as instituting the Nobel Prize in Sweden does not guarantee all the Swedish people a Nobel Prize or setting up of an IIT campus in one city does not guarantee admission into the institution to the city dwellers, AMU centers also do not guarantee admission to Muslims. This is already a proven fact in the AMU at Aligarh. In most of the professional courses, the Muslims students are not in majority.
Thus, Muslims, being a highly marginalized community, will rarely get a chance to reap the benefits of these centers. So it is just a hollow and unfounded claim that simply setting up of AMU centers in minority populated areas will greatly change their conditions and bring them from darkness to light.