By Rafat Nayeem Quadri, for TwoCircles.net,
Ahmedabad: Republic High School and Gujarat Urdu Sahitya Academy jointly organized a 2-day National Seminar on the great architect of Muslim education “Sir Syed Ahmed Khan- Shaksiyat aur Khidmaat” ( Sir Syed Ahmed Khan – his profile and services).
Farook Shaikh, Congress MLA from Kalupur constituency in Ahmedabad, inaugurated the function while Gujarat Wakf Board Chairman and former DGP A I Saiyed was the Chief Guest of the function.
Republic School played a perfect host to the function. Republic School Principal R A Kothariya welcomed the guests and said that the contribution of Sir Syed was indispensable for the Muslim community’s educational map in undivided India. He struggled hard at a time when the country was passing through a dark and era of depression.
Chairman of Gujarat Waqf Board and former DGP A I Saiyed impressed the gathering with his speech full of optimistic and progressive thoughts.
Former IPS-turned-politician of ruling BJP, Saiyed missed no chance to give a call to his community to look into the problems and issues and come out with possible solutions, with a sense of responsibility and sincerity. The biggest stigma of our education was to have a maximum number of school drop-outs of our children. Saiyed tried to spot the reason and said it was precisely due to the non-availability of full-fledged schools till class 12th in all streams and prevailing medium of instructions specially English. Thus, not able to send to far off places many parents refuse to send their children far off and soon they become the earners for the family at some garage or working place in the vicinity. Siayed appealed to the community to take a vow at this juncture to control this dropout rate amongst our students and arrange for their complete education.
Applauding the efforts of Sir Syed, the ex-top cop reiterated that Sir Syed was as an exemplary and stalwart leader of our community. “In order to collect funds for the foundation of the AMU Sir Syed had even danced in the attire of women, when a state rich Nawab insisted him to do so. He did whatever he could to fulfill his dream of getting his community a University of international repute and an aptitude to opt for higher education and study science” added Saiyed.
The former DGP regarded Sir Syed as a person to have the blend of Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Tipu Sultan. He narrated the virtues, teachings and persona of Sir Syed and quoted from his sayings — the quotes which talked of nation, Muslims, secularism and importance of education. He also quoted from the writings of renowned journalist of India M J Akbar in the context of Muslims’ present plight.
Saiyed said the key to success and achievement lies in discipline which should go with education and practice of day to day life. The discipline and rules of army and police which were imbibed by the British were actually what the Prophet Muhammed taught us 1400 years ago.
While pointing out the shortcomings and ills of the society, Saiyed said that we the Muslims still have the highest dropout rate of our children from the schools. He said it was painful to see that our schools are not up till 12th class and could not offer Science stream in English in many cases including the Republic School, which he said was a matter of shame for the society.
He assured the audience to work to set up top class schools, universities and educational institutes which other communities already have. He pointed out that for vested interests some of us were selling off the precious Waqf land at peanuts prices. He also lamented the fact that some of our children who insist to go for afternoon prayers skip science and mathematics class and gradually they can’t study at par with their classmates since they couldn’t complete the chapter.
Saiyed also promised to change the scene of the Muslim community’s educational plight if he was rightly supported by the community to implement the schemes. He appealed to the Muslim intelligentsia and thinkers to come forward and take up the challenge with him to build universities and educational institutes if the hurdles he was facing are addressed by the community and cleared.
He said that due to some vested interests Waqf land worth hundreds of crores of rupees was not being put to proper use and there is a greater threat to its safety. He said that because of such irregularities, despite having swaths of land we Muslims are still deprived of such essential and educational facilities which if put to proper use can bring about a sea-change in the scenario and we need not go anywhere with a begging bowl.
Nuruddin Waliullah while chairing the function praised the personality and stature of Sir Syed with the famous Urdu couplet ‘badi mushkil se hota hai chaman me deeda var paida’. He said it pains me to hear that ‘they are minority they are majority. Even after 60 years, we are still divided into two why can’t we proudly say that ‘we are Indians’.
Waliullah urged the gathering and specially the young generation to match with the time and pace and march ahead. He insisted that we must stick to the project we take and finish it.
Farook Shaikh appealed to BJP politicians on the dais to request Chief Minister Narendra Modi to consider making Urdu as the second official language of the state. He said by doing so they will serve a very important purpose for the community and would benefit them.
He reiterated that we could learn so much from Sir Syed’s struggle, who started the Aligarh movement for higher and modern education at a time when there was no weightage given to formal worldly education and only religious study was considered enough. He described as to how Sir Syed faced serious criticism from Maulvis and Mullahs for his education mission and even chappals were thrown at him which he used to sell to materialize some fund for the mission. He didn’t feel apprehended to approach a leading sex worker of those days Munni Begum and sought support to combat the plight of education among Muslims. To this, the lady readily agreed to contribute her one time earnings.
Shaikh also stressed the point that the better outcome of the post-1992 era for Muslims was the inclination towards education. He appealed to all Muslims to progress in life and join the mainstream in a big way and be part of one country and one place.
The Key address of the function was delivered by Dr. Shafey Kidwai, Prof and HoD of Mass Communication at Aligarh Muslim University. He stressed the need to study and implement the virtues and practices of Sir Syed whose personality and teachings were different from the crowd, who also stood to lot of criticism from his contemporaries and yet stuck to his mission. Sir Syed’s vision about various sections of life and his personality has impressed and influenced our lives. Despite all odds, Sir Syed wrote on all relevant issues and important subjects and brought out two publications.
Sughra Begum Bukhari, the Assistant Registrar of Urdu Sahitya Academy said that Sir Syed was a role model for all of us for promoting the idea of modern education.
Earlier, Dr. Shirinben Mehta, former HoD of History at Gujarat University and a historian said she wondered as to how to describe and narrate the personality and stature of a person like Sir Syed who had said “Hindu aur Musalman Hindustan ki do aankhen hain’ (Hindus and Muslims are the two eyes of India).
Mehta reiterated that the biggest contribution of Sir Syed was to give proper identity to Muslims who were till then divided and described by the names of the area. He urged the youngsters to read English books.
Prof Mohiyuddin Bombaywala, Director of Peer Muhammed Shah Library and a senior researcher and Urdu lover stressed the need to read and understand the work of Sir Syed. He added that the hard work and sincerity which Sir Saiyed had was exemplary. Despite having not known the English language Sir Syed visualized its international appeal and importance and insisted to have a University for his community to have higher education in English. He even went to Cambridge and Oxford Universities to study the education pattern and attempted to aim the same for his community children.
Speakers and audience missed the presence of former president of Urdu Sahitya Academy Prof Waris Husein Alvi who was ailing and couldn’t make it to the function.