The idea of a university

It is intriguing that documenting institutional histories is often a neglected genre of writing in a post-colonial society, in which indigenous educational institutions have emerged from movements with imaginations of liberating and modernising a society from ignorance and servitude. At a time when private institutions invigorate with phantasmagorical promises of higher learning, ‘AMU: Institution of Learning or Identity’ is a significant and timely narrative of a complex institution that has its tentacles in colonial modernity.

The authors, Anil and Arjun Maheshwari, have managed to put together information from an enormous diversity of sources, defying the length and breadth of time, to the extent that one gets a feeling of the product as an information overload. This genealogical narrative of AMU is spread across 29 chapters, with a carefully-crafted glossary to help English readers understand frequently used Urdu phrases, comprehensive endnotes and an index. The chapters are unevenly distributed, yet organised in amusing themes. This is a magnum opus in institutional history where comprehension and critique are carefully navigated.

AMU emerged as a quest to blend modernity with tradition. Its symbolic representation was the establishment of the Muhammedan Anglo Oriental College (MAO), the embryo of the university, in 1877. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, the founder of the idea, perceived western education as a means to uplift Muslim communities and dreamt of a ‘Muslim modernism’. The idea was complex, filled with contradictions, yet poised with possibilities. A visionary, he could sense the nerves of a community suddenly caught in a time warp of inertia and an existential crisis after 1857. His interjections of reason into faith were rejected and considered against tradition and culture. Like Ambedkar, Sir Syed was a modernist who was deeply suspicious of the Indian National Congress’ version of the nationalist movement. The paradox was that his rationalism was rejected by the Muslim nationalists who envisioned preservation of culture among the Muslims.

This paradox ran deeper when, in the words of Ather Farouqui, the “All Indian Muhammadan Educational Conference gave birth to the Muslim League in 1906”. The movement ceased to be educational and became political and germinated the idea of Partition. The book suggests that this was one of the churning points of the institutional history as there was a mass migration of faculty and intellectuals to new formations. “Partition came as a boon for AMU to bury its past, but did not convert it into an opportunity,” adds Farouqui. Most of the time, paradoxes offer acquiescence. When Dr Zakir Hussain, an alma mater of MAO college, took charge of the varsity after Independence, there were promises of excellence, in adverse conditions of exodus of faculty and students to the newly constituted nation.

There are two moments in the book that signify the scholarship and depth of research of the authors. The first is chapter 12, a scintillating narrative of the establishment of Women’s College at AMU by Begum Wahid Jahan aka Aala bi and her husband, Sheikh Abdullah. The college was one of the first to provide a space for women’s education. Aala bi assured a secure environment for the girls to not only learn, but also defy the practice of purdah. Scholars such as Ismat Chughtai jolted the underlying veiled life of patriarchy of a community poetically through the publication of ‘Angare’. Scholarships of reputation and excellence flowed from the college. The second is chapter 23, where ideological tussles between the ‘Marxist Rajas’ and the cultural revivalists are swiftly presented as antithetical to the growth of an institution.

The debates over the minority status of the institution with reference to sections 29 and 30 of the Indian Constitution remain an underlying theme, with both ideological and legal ramifications over admissions and administrations that the book deals with comprehensively. In the foreword, Farouqui regrets the fact that no attempt has been made for a compilation of Sir Syed’s works in Urdu, let alone in English, but pronounces the significance of this book, attempting to fill a void neglected in documenting the history of institutions in India.

— The writer teaches sociology at Dr BR Ambedkar University, Delhi