by Mobin Pandit
India’s Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) is in need of an urgent uplift — both academically and infrastructure-wise, says a former registrar.
Syed Mohamed Afzal said here on Friday that much of the $25m provided by the Indian government to AMU in annual aid is spent on staff salaries, pensions and medical services.
“So, there is hardly any fund left for development, with the result that there is no expansion or improvement in the university’s infrastructure,” Afzal told this newspaper in a brief interview.
AMU is one of the largest residential universities in India with some 20,000 male and female students living in hostels that roughly total a 100. Another 8,000 students are non-residents.
And although students have been multiplying in number with each passing year, no new hostels are being built to cope with the increase.
Some old bungalows that were the living quarters of senior professors earlier are now being converted into make-shift hostels for girl students.
There is a severe lack of sporting facilities due partly to a lack of funds to build new infrastructure, and also because in this era of the internet most students prefer to remain within the confines of their hostel rooms after lectures.
This is a matter of concern, lamented Afzal. “Their (students’) energies are not being channeled into the right direction and that is one of the reasons why one witnesses occasional recurrence of violence on the campus.”
A senior Indian Police Service (IPS) official, Afzal is currently posted in Gwalior, Central India, as Inspector-General (IG) of Special Armed Force (SAF).
He has been registrar of Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, as well. He was here at the invitation of Doha-based AMU Alumni Association led by Nadeem Maher and Habibun Nabi.
Afzal said he was in favor of setting up AMU campuses in cities across India. The university presently has centers in Mallapuram in Kerala and Murshidabad in West Bengal—cities that have fairly large Muslim population. A campus in coming up in Bihar (Kishanganj).
“We need to open up campuses in more Indian cities,” Afzal said. Asked about the Gulf countries which have a large presence of Indian Muslims, he said a centre was set up in Dubai but was closed down later.
“Of course, we must also have Gulf campuses of AMU.”
Afzal rues that in the 114 years since the legendary Sir Syed died, Indian Muslims have not been able to build a single educational institution of that stature.
Sir Syed died in 1998 and a college he set up in Aligarh was converted into a university 22 years later, in 1920, and it came to be known as AMU.
AMU has produced many eminent personalities and, interestingly, among them have been India’s first Muslim President, Dr Zakir Hussain, and Pakistan’s first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, and former Pakistani President, General Ayub Khan.
The Peninsula
