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Aligarh Muslim University, Raja Mahendra Pratap and Attempts of Polarization

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Raja Mahendra Pratap

Those resorting to communal politics have not only perfected their techniques of polarizing the communities along religious lines, but have been constantly resorting to new methods for dividing the society. On the backdrop of Muzzafar nagar, where ‘Love Jihad’ propaganda was used to enhance the divisive agenda, now in Aligarh an icon of matchless virtues, Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh is being employed for the similar purposes.

The attempt by BJP and associates to hold the memorial function in his honor within campus was successfully deflected by the Vice Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) University with the plan for a seminar befitting his contribution to the freedom movement of this AMU alumnus.

BJP dug up this icon from pages of history and gauzing prevalent respect for him after the lapse of decades after his death. The answer to why now at this particular juncture is very revealing. Mahendra Pratap died on 29 April 1979, and now out of the blues BJP seems to have felt that his Jat, Hindu identity can be pitched as a flag of their politics. Pratap was a freedom fighter extraordinary, a journalist and a writer. He was a humanist, believing in International federation of nations transcending the national and religious boundaries. He was a Marxist who called for social reforms and empowerment of Panchayats. He was president of Indian Freedom Fighters’ Association He was also the first one to form the provisional Indian Government in exile by establishing it in Kabul in 1915. Just to recall the Indian National Congress adopted the goal of complete freedom for India much later in its 1929 session. This Provisional Government was called Hakumat-i-Moktar-i-Hind, and was constituted with Pratap as the President, Maulvi Barkatullah as prime minister and Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi as interior minister.

After independence he also participated in the electoral arena where he defeated Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Mathura in the 1957 Lok Sabha election. His commitment to being opposed to communal forces could not be more evident than this opposition of his to the leader of Bhartiya Jansangh, Vajpayee. Ironically same person is being lifted up as the icon, who opposed their politics. BJP leaders like Yogi Adityanath are claiming that had Mahendra Pratap not donated the land the AMU would not have come up. This is contrary to the facts. The predecessor of AMU, Mohammadan Anglo Oriental College was formed in 1886, with a land bought from British cantonment (Nearly 74 Acres) and much later Pratap had leased 3.04 acres of land, this is called Tikonia ground and is used as a playground by the City High School of AMU in 1929. He joined the Mohammedan Anglo Oriental College in 1895, but could not complete his graduation. He left MAO College in 1905. MAO became Aligarh Muslim University in 1920, which regards Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh as an alumnus. In 1977, AMU, under V-C Prof A M Khusro, felicitated Mahendra Pratap at the centenary celebrations of MAO.

He wasn’t born when MAO was established, and there is no record of any donation of land from him. Mahendra Pratap’s father Raja Ghanshiam Singh of Mursan had got a hostel room constructed, which continues to stand as Room Number 31 in Sir Syed Hall (South).

BJP demanded that Mahenra Pratap’s birthday should be celebrated as AMU celebrates the birthday of Sir Syed, the founder of the University RSS Functionaries and BJP leaders put pressure on the VC. VC pointed out that AMU cannot celebrate birth day of every donor or alumnus, while recognizing their contribution to the building up of the University. As such already AMU in recognition of Pratap’s contribution to the University has put up his photo in University along with the photo of Sir Syed.

On November 17 (2014), BJP chief of UP Mr. Laxmikant Bajpai and general secretary Swatantra Dev Singh visited Aligarh and directed their district unit to celebrate the birth day of Mahendra Pratap’s within the MU campus. The raja is a also Jat icon, In popular perception AMU is seen as a Muslim institution. The Jat-Muslim conflict instigated by communal forces, which erupted in the form of violence in Muzaffarnagar continues to affect in western part of UP. The BJP through its machinations allegedly wants to restore the glory of a Jat ‘king’. As such the idea is to appropriate one more of icons and in the process if the state government puts curbs on the celebration, the BJP can benefit by accusing the state Government of “Muslim appeasement”.

As the matters stand VC, Gen. Shah’s suggestion of celebrating the birth anniversary of Raja Mahendra Pratap by organizing a seminar on his contribution to freedom movement of India is a welcome initiative. The situation seems to have been diffused for the time being. BJP had planned a rally outside the gate of AMU, which would have precipitated the unwarranted incidents.

This whole episode has many lessons for the society. To begin with, the national icons are being modulated to suit the interests of communal politics. Be it Sardar patel, Swami Vivekanand, Mahatma Gandhi or in this case Raja Mahendra Pratap, they are being presented in the light which suits the communal politics. In case of Mahedra Pratap, who was a Marxist internationalist; is being presented as a mere Jat leader. He was a person who opposed the politics in the name of religion, as is evident by his electoral fight against BJP’s previous avatar, Bhartiya Jan Sanghs’ Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Secondly BJP associates are manipulating people’s identity as primarily being religious identity, Hindu or Muslim. In case of Muzzafarnagar, the Jats who were instigated in the name of ‘love Jihad’ came to stand more for Hindu identity. This identity is then made to stand opposed to the ‘other’ religious identity in particular, the Muslim identity and sometimes Christian identity. Same game is also being experimented in parts of Delhi, where Dalits are being made to pitch against Muslims, in a way two deprived communities being made to fight for’ their’ religion’ on the pretext of some issues related to faith.

The communal politics not only manipulates the identity of the people but also that of the icons, as is clear in the case of Raja Mahendra Pratap. The third major lesson for society to learn is that the search is on to find more and more issues to pitch one religious community against the other to strengthen the politics of a particular type. While the top leadership will talk of moratorium on violence, the associates of the same leadership will stoke the processes which will lead to the process of violence in due course.

A great amount of restraint is needed to ensure that we learn the values of the icons, e.g. the likes of Mahendra Pratap teach us the basic lessons of love and amity, peace and universal humanism. To use the techniques of conflicting religious identities is a gross violation of human morality, irrespective of the religion in whose name it is done.

Dear PM, Save Our Colleges From Communal Agendas

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Aligarh Muslim University

by Rana Ayyub

My father, a noted writer from the field of Urdu literature, like many of his friends from the Progressive writers movement, found in his alma mater Aligarh Muslim University, the courage to break the barriers of religion enforced stereotypes. He forced his wife, my mother, who was raised in a conservative family of zamindars from Uttar Pradesh to pursue her education post marriage and give up all ominous practices of subjugation.

Among the first few books my mother was gifted besides Maxim Gorky’s ‘Mother’ were on Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, the founder of AMU, and Sultan Shahjahan Begum, the first female ruler who vehemently worked for the promotion of education amongst women and Muslims in particular.

Shahjahan Begum, also referred to as the Begum of Bhopal, was the first Vice-Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University which gave India some of its best known luminaries from the field of politics, art, literature. AMU alumni include former Presidents of India and current Vice President Hamid Ansari, who also served a term as the Vice Chancellor of the university.

Some of the most prolific writers and thinkers with affiliation to the Marxist philosophy owe their careers to AMU. One such figure was Raja Mahendra Pratap, an admirer of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, who started the Mohammad Anglo Oriental College after successfully completing his education from Oxford and Cambridge.

With the dominance of religious education in the lives of Muslims, who were in the lowest rung of socio-economic progress, Sir Syed understood that religious studies from Madrassas did not give the less privileged a window into the world; for them to succeed, there was a dire need for a platform which helped them with a contemporary understanding of religion, philosophy and science.

While the University was started with the intent of providing modern education to Muslims, non-Muslims were welcomed. It was for this reason that many Hindu rulers of the time sent their children to the Mohammedan Anglo Oriental College spread over 468 hectares of land which was later renamed the Aligarh Muslim University.

So impressed was Raja Mahendra Pratap with the vision of Sir Syed that he decided to lease 3.04 acres of land to the AMU in 1929. Though it was a small share, this helped forge a strong bond between Hindus and Muslims. His commitment to the social cause and his zeal for the Marxist thought was such that Lenin himself is said to have invited him to Russia post the success of the Bolshevik revolution.

An independent MP from Mathura from the year 1955 to 1962, and a freedom fighter with a desire to weed out communal thinking, Mahendra Pratap despised all form of right-wing indoctrination. Little did he realize that one day his name would be used by right-wing leaders to turn an educational institute he so admired into a ground for religious polarisation.

Satish Gautam, BJP MP from Aligarh, whose party has professed commitment to ushering in a new era of development and inclusive growth, has decided to use AMU to instigate communal politics between Jats and Muslims, both communities being the main constituents of Aligarh.

Satish Gautam, a popular figure amongst Jats, possibly realises that the last time the two communities were provoked in Muzaffarnagar, it earned rich political dividends for his party. But in his overzealous endeavour to use AMU, he has conveniently forgotten to state some very important facts to his followers.

It would be judicious on the part of Satish Gautam, who has threatened to hold a rally at the gates of the AMU on the birth anniversary of Raja Mahendra Pratap on the 1st of December to list for his followers some of the most revolutionary non-Muslim thinkers from AMU. Before and during the freedom movement, both Muslim and Hindu kings and rulers united against the British and helped each other – these included funding educational institutions. AMU and the famous Banaras Hindu university were the two icons of this educational uprising that received patronage from both the communities.

Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya, the founder of the Banaras Hindu University, had no qualms about accepting funds from Muslim rulers and elites.

If one were to accept the BJP MP’s logic, then each and every person who leased land for the 468 hectares of AMU will have to be celebrated just like each and every donor of BHU and thousands of other educational institutes in India.

Would the BJP MP not do a great service to the iconic institution by asking it to celebrate the birth anniversary of social reformer Raja Ram Mohan Roy, who was one of the main influences on Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, or guide the non-Muslim students of Aligarh to the plaque of historian Ishwar Prasad, who belonged to the first batch of graduates from the AMU?

The Vice Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University has written to the Education Minister Smriti Irani stating that the BJP’s decision to hold a rally would provoke communal tension; he has said the university is willing to diffuse the tension by holding a seminar on Raja Mahendra in the future. Smriti Irani displayed her feminist side by speaking out against the VC’s alleged decision to not allow female undergraduate students into the Central library – she called it an “insult to the daughters of the country.”

Now she should take the first step in saving the legacy of the likes of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya by weeding out the rogue elements who threaten to target educational institutions.

In the last few months, there seems to have been a meticulous plan to target educational bodies by fringe elements by planting fictitious stories and dividing them on religious lines. On this particular occasion, it would be wise for the powers that be to not allow local Samajwadi Party and BJP leaders to target the sacrosanct for a communal or political agenda. Both the HRD Minister and the Prime Minister, who has held education as one of the key areas of development in his agenda, should step forward to save the legacy of the great reformists from being converted into a communal experiment.

Rana Ayyub is an award-winning investigative journalist and political writer. She is working on a book on Prime Minister Narendra Modi which will be published in 2015.

Relevance of Sir Syed’s philosophy for Indian Muslims today

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Nawab Mohsin ul Mulk, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan (middle), Justice Syed Mahmood.

Nawab Mohsin ul Mulk, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan (middle), Justice Syed Mahmood.

by Dr. Faiza Abbasi

It is that time of the year again. The roads and buildings of the Aligarh Muslim University are lit up once again. The proudly referred to Alig community all round the globe from Ottawa to Dubai, dines together, wherever there are a few AMU Alumni/ae. The present day forerunners of the ‘Aligarh Movement’ deliver moving speeches in tongue twisted English and chaste Urdu peppered with couplets from Iqbal as the audience wait in baited breath to tap foot and combust in roaring applause on the AMU Tarana penned by its old boy Asrarul Haque Majaz, sung by a choir of girls in white suit with red cover head dupatta and boys in black sherwani with the AMU logo embroidered on the collar. All this is done to commemorate the S. S. Day in memory of the Founder of AMU, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan born on October 17, 1817.

Sir Sayyid, pained by the decimation of his community in the aftermath of the 1857 revolt envisioned modern scientific education to be the only ray of hope for restoring the lost glory of a people until recently ruled by its Nawabs, Mansabdars, Taluqdars and Jagirdars pledging allegiance to an ailing, geriatric, Poet – Emperor in the Red Fort. Breaking away from the Fort which had conferred upon him the title of Jawaduddaula, Sayyid Ahmad Khan served the British East India Company as a Judicial Clerk and built a rapport with the Raj officials. He was born and brought up in Delhi under the strong influence of his mother’s values of piety, honesty and compassion. On his many postings under the Raj he closely observed his country and its people in many cities of India like Benaras, Ghazipur, Bulandshahar and Aligarh.

During his ensuing travel to the Great Britain in 1869-70, which lengthened over 17 months he used all opportunities to learn from the post- renaissance British Society. In his letters from England he hails Indians to learn from the cleaner of his apartment at Mecklenburg Square, Camden, London. The woman earned a pittance but made it a point to spend half a penny on a Newspaper and read it every day. However, he understood the basic differences between the west and the east and knew the areas where the twain shall never meet. He narrates an interesting incident of his sea voyage, ‘during a formal dining event on the deck the bearers misjudged me on account of my heavy weight, flowing beard and serious looks to be the head of the table and offered to serve me a drink. As I could not converse in English and my interpreter was not around I made a hand gesture refusing the prohibited alcohol. This he mistook as that not being my favourite tipple. He brought me another and I repeated the same. This happened several times before he could finally get me. Then he brought for me water – the life giving drink of Allah for all Mankind’. In spite of his resistance to some of the un-Islamic courtesies of the British nobility he became the first Indian member of the Athenaeum – the most high-class English Club which is still considered above many in UK.

Back from his trip to England he dreamt of and pursued diligently for an educational institution in the dusty plains of north-India on the lines of Oxford and Cambridge. He said ‘I dream of a College where boys will wear the customary chugha, they will never hurl abuses at each other, the Halls of residence will be attached to a mosque, and no one will be allowed to discuss the origins of the sects in Islam as to how the Shia was alienated from the Sunni’. When he embarked upon materialising his plans for the MAO College it was a hard toil he diligently pursued in collecting funds, making people contribute financially and receiving endowments of land and Wakf property for the College.

In his attempt to bring modern education to Muslims he faced maximum opposition from his own co-religionists. Some groups of clergy even passed on him the fatwa of kufr which is the ultimate disgrace for a man who held his Islamic beliefs and Muslim identity dear to his heart. Yet, the tenacious Sayyid Ahmad pleaded the British Govt. for help, urged the Muslim intelligentsia and never looked back. Once when he was on the streets asking for donation someone threw a stone at him to dissuade him. He picked it up saying it will be used in the foundation of the College. He could make this arduous journey and his dream saw the light of the day in his life time because of the support of few of his close accomplices. Amongst them are Maulvi Samiullah, Altaf Hussain Hali, Shibli Nomani and his close friend and aid Raja Jaikishan Das. The latter was one of the most trustworthy keepers of the Society that made the MAO (Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental) College in 1877. In his laps Sir Sayyid put his only grandson Syed Ross Masood during his Baptism ceremony.

Today what the Aligarians in particular and the Indian people at large have to understand is that Sir Sayyid never meant the AMU to be a University of the Muslims, by the Muslims and for the Muslims. He had the foundation stone of the College laid by Lord Lytton and the Lytton Library, in AMU is still remembered after him. He was pro-west but never anti-east. All he wanted was the goodness of the west to be embraced by the east for the emancipation of its own people who had lost in the battle of education. This however, doesn’t imply that he wanted Muslims to shun their Islamic ideals and meld into the western ethos of culture, society and civilization. His broad vision comprehended the follies of being anti-government during those days and prevented his Aligarh Movement from influences of the other nationalist movements springing up. In other words Sir Sayyid wanted for his community what a parent naturally wants for his offspring.

Today many a historians wrongly attribute the ‘Two Nation Theory’ to Sir Sayyid as its progenitor. While it is true that he loved his qaum more than Majnoo would have loved Laila and Farhad would have loved Shireen, the fact is that a reformer like Sir Sayyid should be placed above these petty divisive lines. This was a man who believed and strived for freedom of thought and expression. Who founded the ‘Scientific Society’ in Aligarh and its journal Tehzib ul Akhlaq based on the revolutionary ‘Spectator’ and ‘Tatler’ of England. Who exhorted his people to protect India like a beautiful bride whose two eyes were the Hindoos and Mussalmans. Would anyone like a one-eyed bride? He asked. Who lived and died for an educational institution that would reform a long relegated community.

Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan is to be remembered by the people of India as a person who wanted education to be away from political dogma and by the world wide Alig community as someone who never cared about religious, nationalist or cast based differences when it came to improving the quality of education. Why the first graduate produced by the MAO College was Ishwari Prasad and Theodore Beck – immortalised by the Beck Manzil in AMU is its most celebrated Principal? Sir Walter Raleigh who established the English Department was among the many European teachers invited from England to impart the best practices of teaching and learning in various disciplines. The first departments of studies at the AMU were the Departments of Arabic, Urdu, Law and Sanskrit amongst others.

The most relevant lesson from his philosophy for the students of Aligarh Muslim University and its Alumni/ae is never to indulge in anti-nationalist or militant activities and in order to ensure quality of education at the University never regress to regionalism, sexism or sectarianism. They are well advised to evolve from the once rampant fierceness and fanaticism that characterised the Islamic rule in the medieval ages and reinvent the original goodness of Islam for peace, progress and brotherhood. The Founder of the Aligarh Muslim University knew in advance the relevance of modern, scientific and English education while adhering to the primary goodness of being a Muslim with personal beliefs of purity, integrity and justice. He exhorted the students to uphold the Quran in one hand and the knowledge of natural sciences in another to be complete human beings. Our students should be equipped with just that and no cob webs of dreary divisions should be viewed on them by the country.

Dr. (Mrs.) Faiza Abbasi is Assistant Professor, UGC Academic Staff College, Aligarh Muslim University E-mail: faeza.abbasi@gmail.com

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