Now that the above provocative heading was able to catch your attention, to the people reading this, hello!
Since last week, my brethren and I from Aligarh Muslim University have been called by this name. We have also been called ‘lovers of Jinnah’, ‘Jinnah apologists’, “woh log jo khate yahan ka hai aur gaate wahan ka hai (those people who eat here and sing of some other place)”, among other creative variations of the above. As we have been collectively called this, I thought it would be appropriate that this letter should start as one.
For the past few days, since this controversy erupted, all the discussions I have had in person, in the office or on social media have led to a binary, singular bias – that the AMU students and administration are protesting in support of Jinnah.
I write this letter today in hopes of getting some facts across to you, because these facts would surely be needed the next time you see an overzealous news anchor (I am looking at you Arnab) calling everyone in vicinity ‘anti-national’, while Jinnah’s huge overbearing picture looks down upon panel members of a TV debate like big brother. These panel members would hold the belief that some people hold a closet admiration for Jinnah and then you will receive WhatsApp forwards about a group of students asking for “azaadi (freedom)” which will immediately be implied to mean azaadi from India (we were taught the same thing during the JNU incident).
I request you to kindly consider the following facts:
1. Jinnah’s portrait has been hanging in the university since 1938, when he was conferred a lifetime membership of AMU’s student union. Jinnah himself was a great votary of Hindu-Muslim unity during the majority of his political career, before he ultimately became a turncoat and was even called the ‘greatest bridge between Hindu-Muslim solidarity’ by Sarojini Naidu herself.
2. There are multiple historical artifacts of either Jinnah or those associated with Jinnah still available all over the country. Some of the more famous ones are Jinnah’s enrolment certificate as lawyer in Bombay high court, People’s Jinnah Hall and Jinnah House in Mumbai and probably the most important, yet forgotten – a portrait of Jinnah himself in the parliament. The government of the day that considers removal of a portrait that has been lying dormant in the hall of a university for almost 80 years so very important. Then they should most definitely consider the removal of the portrait from the parliament. Sadly, all this noise is just about AMU.
3. In continuation with the 2nd point, someone might think that AMU reveres Jinnah and therefore has kept the portrait for such a long time. As an ex-student of the university, believe me when I say that during my four years in the university, I didn’t even know that such a portrait existed. You can lay the blame on either my ignorance or rather on the fact that no one gave a toss about it. We didn’t know about it maybe because no one lit candles in front of it every year, nor did anyone ask us to gather in secret to pay reverence to the portrait and the man. If such underground rallies did actually take place, yours truly wasn’t made aware of those. You may again blame it on my ignorance.
4. Coming to probably the most important fact of all, on May 2, 2018, members of the Hindu Yuva Vahini (HYV) and people from the RSS, allegedly along with policemen, marched towards the AMU guest house chanting “AMU ke gaddaro ko, goli maaro saalo ko (shoot the traitors from AMU)” and “AMU murdabad-Jinnah murdabad (death to AMU, death to Jinnah)”. They were also carrying pistols. Six people from HYV and the ABVP were initially handed over to the police by the college administration but the police let them go.
This caused the students of AMU to protest. They demanded an FIR be registered against those men. Then they marched towards the police station to get the FIR filed and the police lathi-charged them. Tear gas was also used and some unidentified men hurled stones.
5. Thousands of university students, as well as teaching and non-teaching staff, have been continuously sitting in protest against the police’s heavy-handedness and the goons who, with the support of the state and its machinery, freely entered the campus and created an atmosphere of violence.
6. The protesting students have a few basic demands. And none of these concern Jinnah, his ideas or his philosophy. Their demands include revoking the FIRs registered against AMU students (yes, FIRs were actually filled against the students!), FIRs to be lodged against the actual culprits, the arrest of the identified culprits, and action to be initiated against police personnel who ordered a lathi charge without warning.
These are the facts which students, having braved the summer sun, police atrocities, administration’s indifference and the state’s high headedness, have been trying to get across for a week.
These facts become all the more important since in the coming days, this topic will become less interesting in terms of TRP. But still, you will keep encountering videos on YouTube of students supposedly sloganeering against India. You may find some bearded person spewing venom and he’ll be regarded as representing the university. You may come across crude photoshopped pictures of the students keeping photos of Qaid-e-azam in their hostels, books, labs, lab coats, etc.
This is after all how propaganda works. A narrative is slowly fed into our minds, backed by mostly doctored material.
Hope you will remember these facts the next time you get a WhatsApp forward related to AMU.
One of the many sons of Gandhi,
An alumnus of Aligarh Muslim University