Muslim University (AMU) was a fairly small university when independence came.
With the AMU (Amend-
ment) Act, 1951, the Government of India took up the entire responsibility for
its maintenance and provided it with a largely democratic and autonomous
structure. The result of these steps was the beginning of a phase of expansion
of the university with central government funds (afterwards routed through the
University Grants Commission). The Chatterji Committee appointed to review the
working of the university (1960) commended the Act of 1951 and agreed that a
policy of admissions, where some preference may be given to internal students,
should continue. The Act of 1951 forbade in its Article 8 the admission of
students through any "test of religious belief" and the question of reservation
for Muslims was not raised by anyone.
Unfortunately, a sudden enhancement of the internal quota to 75
per cent in 1963 and its proposed reduction in 1965 created a violent incident
in the latter year. The Government of India took the opportunity to practically
scuttle the Act of 1951 through an ordinance and in effect took over control of
the university’s administration by its nominees. This action had the most
disastrous consequences. As against government control, the issue of AMU’s
autonomy as a minority institution was raised for the first time by many critics
of the government’s ham-handed act. It was only after seven years that in 1972
certain amendments were made to restore some internal authority to AMU, but
there yet remained in it far too many undemocratic provisions, reminiscent of
the 1965 ordinance…
Finally, in 1981 Indira Gandhi’s government brought forth
amendments to show that they were trying to underline the minority character of
AMU… But that these provisions were intended to have no effect on the policy of
admissions was shown by the reformulation, by the same amendment Act, of
Section 8, in the following words: "The university shall be open to all persons
(including the teachers and taught) of either sex and of whatever race,
religion, creed or class". The only proviso to this was permission to
provide religious instruction to "those who have consented to receive it". There
is no proviso for any kind of denominational reservation…
The whole question was reopened by the BJP government in
2003-04. In his effort to bring admissions to all professional courses in the
country under his control, Murli Manohar Joshi, the then human resource
development (HRD) minister, sanctioned a 50 per cent Muslim quota for the Jamia
Hamdard (a "Deemed University"), and as the AMU vice chancellor has confirmed,
offered the same to AMU. It is not surprising that the VC of AMU has been citing
the Hamdard Deemed University’s quota system as a precedent for AMU, although
Hamdard is an institution managed by a private trust while AMU is administered
according to a parliamentary Act and, being maintained by the government, is
‘part of the state’ in the eyes of the law…
The new admission policy, which reverses a tradition established
since AMU’s foundation, stipulates that at the maximum only 25 per cent of the
seats in the main professional and technical courses (medicine, engineering,
management, etc.) would now be absolutely open to merit. A further 20 per cent
will be reserved for internal students. For ‘Muslims of India’ who fail to enter
AMU through these two channels, a 50 per cent quota would be provided. Finally,
there will be a five per cent discretionary quota for admitting children of
employees, alumni, government servants, SC/ST candidates, etc. In medicine, the
percentages are 25 per cent general, 25 per cent internal and 50 per cent for
Muslim candidates not getting through under the first two categories. There is
thus to be practically no SC/ST quota at any level…
What the university authorities and the HRD ministry have
entirely failed to recognise is the blow they have struck at the character and
repute of AMU. The letter from the MHRD to allied parties quotes from the speech
of late CPI leader Indrajit Gupta where he rightly said that a university does
not become communal if it has a majority of Muslims – which for AMU has always
been the case. But if a religious test is imposed – which Indrajit Gupta never
contemplated, and which Section 8, as redrafted by the very Amendment Act of
1981, entirely bans – it can no longer be said that the admissions to AMU are
not communally oriented…
Far from addressing this very important issue, the university
authorities have, in order to justify their new admission policy, publicly run
down the quality of education imparted at AMU both in its schools and in its
university classes (Admission Review Committee’s Report, pp. 2-3)…
A university is an intellectual community. Until now it was the
proud boast of AMU that once a student is admitted here there would be no
discrimination between him and others on any sectarian grounds. Neither the
university authorities nor the MHRD seem willing to consider the very disturbing
fact that now on the AMU campus there would be two sets of students – one set
disadvantaged by its religion, and having only half the chance than the other of
getting admitted to a higher course. One cannot predict the tensions that such
discrimination could breed on the campus.
(Excerpted from an article published in Communalism Combat,
June 2005. Irfan Habib is an eminent historian and former professor of history,
Aligarh Muslim University.)