‘ The university was the site of mushairas; they don’t happen any more ’
MUSHIRUL HASAN

amu, 1964-69

In an ideal world a vice-chancellor should devise plans for the growth and expansion of the university. Instead, the head of the Aligarh Muslim University is forced to seek the Central Government’s intervention and the presence of paramilitary forces to control violence and unruly student lumpenism. Syed Ahmad Khan, the founder of the MAO College, expected a renaissance of sorts to occur in Aligarh. Maulana Azad described the university as “the visible embodiment of the victory of the forces of progress”. One wonders if it is the same today. The VC’s appeal is symptomatic of what ails a premier centre of learning.
In the late 1960s, we lived in the shadow of some outstanding scholars. One of them was Mohammad Habib. Few teachers of history and political science could ever have so many pupils who were later to win distinction as scholars. His son Irfan Habib was, of course, the rising star on the intellectual firmament. He used to ride a bicycle then, as he does now. His colleagues rewarded him by denying him an Emeritus professorship. So much for Azad’s “victory of the forces of progress”.
I remember Moonis Raza, an exuberant man who seemed to put all his strength into whatever he said or did; his brother Rahi Masoom Raza, the scriptwriter for B.R. Chopra’s television series Mahabharata, was then a bohemian, radical and revolutionary. Both wrote my English and Urdu speeches for the debates in the university. Interestingly enough, left-wing scholars manned the Arabic and Islamic Studies department: one of them had been a leading light in the Progressive Writers’ Movement. Today, of course, one can merely bemoan the dead legacy of the firebrand Hasrat Mohani—the first to introduce the ‘Complete Independence’ Resolution in 1921—Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, Sardar Jafri and Sibte Hasan, all Aligarians.
Although the Tyabji family was probably the first to break away from established family traditions in Bombay, only a handful of middle class families in north India, mostly from the qasbas (small towns) of what was formerly Awadh, educated their girls in colleges and universities. Women teachers and students, therefore, could occupy the cultural space in Aligarh. The presence of the three Zaidi sisters, as they were known, brought the much-needed relief on a campus that could be stifling at the best of times. They symbolised Aligarh’s break with its past in so many ways. One of their colleagues was Ghazala Ansari; her brother Ziaul Hasan worked with the Patriot for years.
Kennedy House, with its imposing mural by M.F. Husain, was the hub of cultural activism. One could listen to Beethoven and Mozart or Indian classical music. My brother took the part of Tiresias in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, the lead role in Galsworthy’s She Stoops to Conquer and acted the Gentleman Caller in Tennese William’s Glass Menagerie. Lest I forget, the star performer then and later was Naseeruddin Shah. He and I took part in a Mock Parliament Session in Delhi, and in a debating competition held in Jaipur.
The university was the site of several mushairas; they don’t happen any more. I recall Makhdoom Mohiuddin reciting Ek Chambeli ke Manwa tale; Firaq Gorakhpuri prefacing his ghazal with ‘Bhaiyya-re’; and Akhtar-ul Iman, the poet from Anglo-Arabic College (now Dr Zakir Hussain College in Delhi) and Aligarh-educated, reciting the following lines from his poem ‘The Footprint’ or Naqsh-i Pa:
Where have life’s travellers gone?/Nobody knows/What is this world?/No beginning, no end/The shackles of time yet bind it so fast/Where can I stand free of those chains?
Yet, Aligarh had its pitfalls. Facilities at the university were excellent; yet, with few notable exceptions, the institution did not produce scholars or scientists of excellence. Most people were obsessed with the preservation of the university’s ‘minority’ character, and their conversations centred on the future of the minorities.
There were no bookshops, except the Naya Kitab Ghar, run by Kishen Singh, an enthusiast communist. Social life too was restricted. There were no restaurants and no decent cinema halls, except for Tasvir Mahal, which screened English films only on Sundays. With limited avenues for self-expression, faculty members developed lazy habits. Comfort and leisure was all that mattered to them.
Segregation of boys and girls was maintained in lecture rooms-though the winds of change were beginning to alter attitudes. More and more young students from the Women’s College would hop on a rickshaw and travel to the campus to take part in cultural and literary activities. The forces of traditionalism were entrenched but hardly visible to us.
I had a taste of their strength much later in 1968, when the traditionalists, accusing me of being a communist and a pseudo-secularist, mobilised their resources to defeat me in the Student’s Union election. Of all persons, Muzaffar Alam, a Deoband alim and now Professor at the University of Chicago, issued a fatwa in my support. Whether this or the hard work put in by my liberal/secular friends tilted the balance in my favour or not is hard to tell. What brought comfort to all of us was the narrow margin of my defeat. Liberal and left-wing teachers, who had predicted my defeat by a huge margin, expressed much joy at my performance.
Dr Zakir Hussain, the vice-chancellor, claimed in 1955: “The way Aligarh works, the way Aligarh thinks, the contribution Aligarh makes to Indian life … will largely determine the place Muslims will occupy in the pattern of Indian life.”
For this to happen, Aligarh needs to be shaken out of the ennui that has set in. With India’s largest population of educated, intelligent Muslims collected in one place, the university can provide, by its example and its ideas, the lead to the rest of the community.

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