By Shahidur Rashid Talukdar,
Once again the Aligarh Muslim University has been closed Sine-Die. But it’s nothing new to AMU. Having been closed for the fourth time in last 4 years, AMU seems to be outpacing its own record of the campus closure. Although there are dozens of universities in India, of the size and stature of AMU, the varsity has its own distinction for the Sine-Die. No other university has experienced such a regular and frequent incidences of Campus closing. In the recent past, AMU has witnessed either closure or incidences of major student-student or student-administration clash leading to interruption of normal functioning in nearly all the Vice Chancellors’ tenure.
On such occasions, people either blame the AMU administration or the students. Even though the administration changes, the student body also keeps changing, however, the only thing that remains unchanged is the culture of malfunctioning on the part of the administration and unruliness on the part of students. Except for the periods of unrest, AMU is a superb university and a center of excellence for many fields. But these untoward incidences, in a regular interval, not only put the career of thousands of students at stake but also tarnish the image of the entire university.
After any such major incidence, there is usually a change of administrative authorities and policies. A stricter authority comes in and puts the decorum in place, but after a few years of normal functioning the campus again changes its color again. Because of this routine of indiscipline, IAS, IFS, and even IPS officers have failed to control AMU and so have the Academicians. So replacing the Vice Chancellor or some other authority does not seem to provide a permanent solution to the problem. Hence, there is a profound need that both the students and the administration must have a serious introspection as to what leads to such outrage in the university and how can the campus be prevented from further such occasions in future.