FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK
For a Central University to Affiliate
Muslim Educational Institutions
Under Article 30 of the Constitution all religious, linguistic and cultural minorities have the fundamental right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice. Since the promulgation of the Constitution, all religious minorities including the Muslim community have taken advantage of this Constitutional provision and established educational institutions ranging from primary schools to degree. And professional (medical, engineering etc.) colleges as well as religious madrasas and seminaries, ranging from Maktabs to Dar-ul-Ulooms. Indeed, even the renowned Darul-Uloom at Deoband and the Nadwatul Ulema at Lucknow which have the status of private, non-statutory institutions, continue to exist under this constitutional guarantee.
There is growing consciousness in the Muslim community of the need for education - both secular and religious at all levels, throughout the country. Educational societies and trusts are being registered all over the country to sponsor, promote and establish educational institutions. Some State Governments like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka have adopted a very scientific approach to promote education, general and technical, and adopt an annual programme for the establishment of secondary and higher secondary and technical schools, degree and professional colleges and, in order to supplement. The state resources, mobilise the private sector by allotting a 'quota to each community through registered societies/trusts. However, over the years, in many other states the minorities educational institutions have faced and are facing many handicaps, obstacles and difficulties in recognition by the State which would entitle them to grants-in-aid under Article 29(2). In some cases, minority educational institutions have voluntarily asked for 'take over' by the State or the University, under economic pressure.
The questions of categorization of institutions which come within the scope of Article 30, the limits to the right of management in terms of admission and other related questions are pending before 7 judges- Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court. Some slackness is visible in investment by the Muslim minority in professional institutions. However, the essential need of the community is to broad base and modernize school education, as the only viable strategy for a widely dispersed and large community can be to supplement government activity, wherever deficient, so that there are adequate no. of primary or secondary and higher secondary schools, intermediate college, ITC's or ITI's in all villages/tolas, panchayats, blocks and districts of Muslim concentration. But in the existing climate of bias: and prejudice, the management committees are forced to run from pillar to post till they are exhausted and stop in a state of fatigue! Thus, the letter and spirit of the Constitutional and the sanctity of a fundamental right are reduced to meaningless paper declarations.
Under the present system, the primary and secondary schools in a district are administered by the district. Superintendent of Education or the District Education Officers. The State Secondary Educational Examination Board conducts the Secondary and Higher Secondary Examinations apart from the Central Board of Secondary Education. If the minority school is not a recognized institution, its students are sometimes permitted to appear as private candidates through a recognized school. In. some states the Intermediate Colleges or Higher. Secondary Schools are affiliated to Intermediate Council or Higher Secondary Board for purposes of examination. Degree colleges including professional colleges are affiliated to Universities, most of which are established by State legislation. Some State Legislations, in deliberate violation of the concept of autonomy, subject recognition and affiliation to the prior approval of the State Government. This may make financial sense but does not make any educational sense and only serves to enrich the coffers of the mediating level the senior bureaucrats and the ministers concerned! Of course, professional institutions have to be inspected and approved by the national bodies - AICTE or the MCI, as they should be.
There is a general concern that the procedure for affiliation or recognition thwarts the operation of Article 30 of the Constitution and thus discourages educational initiative by the minority communities.
A basic solution would be to establish a Central University for affiliating Muslim educational institutions. This University would be a mechanism for standardization, for defining syllabi and courses of study, for holding examination and awarding degrees, diplomas and certificates. This University would admit and affiliate post-high school institutions, degree colleges in Arts. Science and Commerce as well as Professional Colleges which may also offer post-graduate and specialized courses.
Any Muslim institution in any state may be admitted. provided it has been established and is managed by the community; at least 2/3 of the facilities or seats at Any point of direct intake is reserved for the Muslim community. As far as the faculty is concerned, there shall be no reservation or at least no special treatment for the Muslim community. The community must get the best available teachers for its children. The management shall be exclusively in the hands of the community, excluding the statutory representation of the Central and State Governments, and the University Grants Commission.
In keeping with the spirit and purposes of Article 30, the University would have a Muslim character; it should serve not only as a "teaching shop' but as a transmission belt for religious, cultural and social values associated with Islam and in particular with Indian Islam. This character may be reflected in its structure, in its work programme, in its educational culture, and in its ability to affiliate theological institutions such as madarasas senior or high Madarsas, Jamias and Darul-Ulooms. Such affiliation would help to modernize and standardize their courses of study and syllabi and make their products more employable in India and abroad, in vocations other than those of Khatibs and Imams of Masjids and, inter alia, stop the spate of 'Jamias' and 'Dar-ul-Uloom' whose signboards are visible in every Muslim locality.
Unfortunately, there is no scope, no place, no credibility for private universities in our country. A university is formally 'established' by an Act of the legislature. In this case, central legislation would be necessary. There is a model: the Indira Gandhi Open University Act which permits the University to admit to its facilities, institutions established in any part of the country.
Establishment, recognition and support of minority institutions is essentially a political question. Whatever the Government or some others may claim, the Aligarh Muslim University is not, repeat not, a Minority University. The Muslim youth have no preferential access to its facilities, which is the real test. In fact, the situation has reached the point where but for the artificial props of preference for the 'insiders', the institution of interview in admission to some courses and the nomination quota of the Vice-Chancellor, the Muslims would form a minority of the student’s body, definitely at the post-graduate level and in professional courses. The Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, today is simply a government university, no more, no less. It was simply acquired with the willing consent of the then authorities. The Act does not even pay lip service or recall the name of its founders. For all practical purposes it is lost to the Muslim community.
Recalling the Act which has been passed for establishing a Urdu University in the name of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in Bhopal, we find that while it was much in the news before the General Election, 1996, today everyone has forgotten it. Even Mr. Arjun Singh no longer mentions it. In any case, even if it takes shape in times to come, it shall not serve to promote Urdu as the medium of instruction for modern courses in Arts, Humanities, Science and Technology but to prepare Urdu- knowing youth to become employable in specialized areas.
Urdu, in any case is not the mother tongue even of 50% of Muslim Indians. With the deliberate destruction of the Osmania University which had tried to develop Urdu as the medium of expression and instruction in all modern subjects, the Urdu-speaking people have missed the bus. They realise the truth. Even those parents whose Mother Tongue is Urdu and who speak Urdu at home, do medium of Urdu at least their brighter children who not want to have their children taught through the show promise of upward mobility. Urdu should not be the medium of instructions of the proposed University; it should be English but for all degree courses (Hindi or the Principal Language of the State of location) and the Mother Tongue shall be compulsory in order that the products are proficient in speaking and writing these languages.
To sum up, my concept of the proposed University is a Muslim University, established by the Muslim community, for the promotion of their educational cultural and social development, in exercise of their fundamental right under Article 30 of the Constitution. The Muslim University would need a legislative charter, so that it can award degree and receive due financial support from the Central Government. But to be a centre of excellence, it will have to have more than Government support: the resources of the Muslim Indians and even the resources of the friends of Muslim Indians abroad who have so far been distributing their resources, in the name of religion, to build more 'Masjids and set up more. Madarasas, of which we have a surfeit.
To have a Central legislation will not be easy. The University shall not be offered to the community on a platter. The community will have to work for it energetically and mobilise all its contacts, apply political pressure, talk to its friends cutting across the political and the social barriers and convince them that well-educated Muslim Indians would be a national asset, that modern education would have a multiplier effect on the community and awaken it to its responsibility to play due and proper role, as the community advances into the 21st Century.
New Delhi,
1 August, 1996
(SYED SHAHABUDDIN)
