By Naved Masood
Last week I finally got my LLB degree of 1977 vintage. The saga of obtaining the aforesaid piece of paper deserves to be recorded for posterity. By the time I wrote my final Law examination I had already made it to the IAS and that obviated the need to obtain a provisional certificate as nobody was interested in seeing the proof of my having qualified in Law as a B.Sc degree was all that was required as a proof to make it in the Government.
The time to obtain the degree was the Convocation 1978 which had to be postponed due to the agitation for ‘restoration of minority character’ and the general act of anarchy that prevailed on the campus in the last year of the Vice Chancellorship of Dr A.M Khusro. Determined to obtain the degree a little later, I decided to visit Aligarh around April 1978; a communal riot broke out leading to closure of the University. 1979 again saw a turmoil on the campus when I made an attempt to obtain the coveted piece of paper.
I bided my time till the next year when Mr Saiyad Hamid came to the helm of affairs. Two attempts during his tenure came a cropper; the first on account of a police firing incident and the other when the office of the Registrar (Mr Hamid Ali Khan) was ransacked and the form for award of degree (along with crossed Indian Postal Order) which I had personally handed over to the Registrar a short while back disappeared. Hamid Sahib ultimately left after completing his tenure with several unfinished tasks including an unsigned degree.
Then came Mr S. Hashim Ali whose tenure was relatively free from turmoil. But when I broached the subject of my degree with him, it caused a heart attack which led him to leave for the US for an open heart surgery. The kind soul that I am, I decided to give my senior service colleague a break – if the mere mention of a degree brought about a serious heart condition I could not bear to bring myself to put the health of Hashim Sahib to further jeopardy by making a repeat request.
This brought Prof Nasim Faruqui with a healthy heart. I made a request in the prescribed Form which brought further turmoil to the campus and I decided to take some more pity on the alma mater as my bread and butter did not depend on the certificate of having passed the LLB examination. By then I joined the Ministry of Human Resource Development as Director (Central Universities) and later as Joint Secretary (Universities and Higher Education) with AMU as one of my charges. In one of the Meetings of the Finance Committee (on which I was the nominee of the Visitor) I gingerly broached the subject with the Vice Chancellor Mr Mehmood ur Rahman, the efficient man that Mr Rehman is, I was promised the degree ‘tomorrow’. It is entirely my misfortune and no fault of Mehmood Sahib that his tenure came to an end before ‘tomorrow’ could dawn.
During the tenure of Mr Nasim Ahmad I decided to go through ‘proper channel’ instead of bothering the University VIPs with no different results – possibly on one occasion the IPO was defective while another time saw some employees trouble.
I decided to give Prof Abdul Azees a break as the poor man had little peace and I did not want to further mar his prospects by bringing in the vexed issue of an unissued degree. This made Prof Azees complete his tenure despite heavy odds.
At long last I decided to catch the VC ‘young’. Soon after Lt Gen (R) Zameeruddin Shah settled down, I took Prof Parvez Mustujab, the Controller of Examination in confidence and with the benefit of past failures, refrained from making an application or providing any Postal Order. I am happy to report ladies and gentlemen that this did the trick. On a ‘powerless’ Saturday afternoon (24th June to be precise) Prof Mustujab handed me the degree and made me sign the application form at Aligarh. Given the circumstances of the case, I hope the degree is genuine particularly as I am not familiar with the signatures of the present VC. It is possible, however, that Prof Mustujab has spared the University of a major ordeal as it is quite likely that the many troubles that the institution faced in the last thirty five years was on account of the persistence of someone to obtain a degree for which he has no ostensible use unless he decides to don the black coat post-retirement.
This brings to an end the boring tale of obtaining a degree. By signing the degree the Vice Chancellor has accomplished what many of his predecessors failed despite some of them sincerely trying to do so. Who knows this singular achievement will see him through the rest of the tenure as uneventfully as possible in Aligarh. This reminds me that I owe ten rupees to Prof Mustujab – I suppose, there is no great harm in letting this loan remain in perpetuity.
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Naved Masood is Secretary, Corporate Affairs, Government of India.