On January 5, a two-judge division bench of Allahabad High Court ruled that Aligarh Muslim University is not a minority institution. Chief Justice AN Ray and Justice Ashok Bhushan quashed the review petition filed by the UPA Government and AMU, challenging an earlier single-judge verdict of same purport. On October 4, 2005, Justice Arun Tandon had observed that AMU was not a minority institution and thus AMU Amendment Act, 1981, enacted by the Indira Gandhi Government, was 'unconstitutional'.

The controversy over the minority status of AMU was sparked off by HRD Ministry's notification of February 25, 2005, to reserve 50 per cent seats for Muslims in post-graduate courses.

The UPA Government's move, clearly aimed at courting Muslim votes, had a prequel in Ms Sonia Gandhi's visit to AMU on December 14, 2003. Addressing a seminar on the subject "Jawaharlal Nehru and Nationalism", she alleged that the NDA Government was "targeting minorities, distorting history and subverting institutions of excellence." She aptly described AMU as a historic institution and ironically called upon "all secular and progressive forces" to join hands, to defeat those who "subvert our constitutional values behind a reformist veneer."

The AMU is indeed a "historical institution" but this history makes the Congress ,go into a denial mode. "The official history of the Congress", informs historian RC Majumdar, "denies that the Muslims were opposed to the Congress." It is obvious that Congress's present attitude towards this 'historic institution' will prove the maxim, "Those who don't learn from the mistakes of history are condemned to repeat it."

Aligarh Muslim University, established as Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College (MAOC) by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan in 1875, was never merely an academic institution. It was a characteristic politico-intellectual movement of the Muslim community in the aftermath of the 1857 uprising that lasted till partition of India and continued thereafter. Moreover, it was the epicentre of the ideology of Muslim separatism and hatred was nurtured with active support from the British under the policy of 'divide and rule'.

The protracted disintegration of the Mughal Empire (1707-1857) and the advent of the British was perceived by Muslims not merely as a political but also a religious and civilisational problem. One of its fallouts was the Wahabi Movement inspired by Shah Waliullah (1703-1762), who invited Ahmed Shah Abdali to invade India in 1761 to restore Islamic rule. Waliullah's son Shah Abdel Aziz (1746-1823) declared that India had ceased to be a Dar-ul-Islam (House of Islam) and become Dar-ul-Harb (House of War).

Thus it was incumbent upon Muslims of India to either vanquish the British, Sikhs and Marathas in war or migrate (Hizrat) to lands where Islamic rule prevailed. But 1857 proved the futility of armed confrontation with the British. Those who remained loyal to Wahabism even after the catastrophic experiences of 1857 like Muhammad Qasim Nanauti and Rashid Ahmad Gangohi, set up the Islamic Madarsa (Dar-ul-Uloom) in Deoband in 1867. They responded to British takeover of India by cocooning themselves from the rest of the world.

Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, who had won the British confidence because of the help he rendered to the British during the 1857 uprising, started working towards bringing about a division between Hindus and Muslims. Simultaneously, he sought to identify Muslim interests with that of the British Empire in India. He advocated that Muslims gain mastery over symbols of modernism like the English language, science and technology.

But while talking of modernising the orthodox Muslim society, Sir Syed did not seek to align Muslims on the basis of universal principles of peaceful co-existence, tolerance or democracy. He successfully persuaded the community to look at the Empire as their patron and Hindus as a looming threat to their existence. He shrewdly reversed the pre-1857 hostile relationship between Muslims and British and brought them together against the Hindus. His action bespoke of the American maxim, 'If you can't beat them, join them'.

Sir Syed came up with a theological explanation to justify this alliance with the British. He said that British (Christians), like Muslims, were 'People of the Book', whereas Hindus were infidels. He ran a tirade against nascent the Congress by dubbing it a "Hindu organisation" that Muslims must eschew. He made British and Muslims convenient allies and succeeded in alienating the latter from rest of the country.

First through the 'United Indian Patriotic Association' (established in 1888), and later through The 'Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental Defence Association of Upper India' (established in 1893), Sir Syed and his ilk continued to oppose the Congress and 'strengthen British rule in India'. His influence on Muslim was so deep that very few from the community joined the Congress in the freedom movement. Not a single Muslim League member ever went to jail. When Jinnah dubbed the 'Congress, a Hindu party in 1940s, and saw Hindus and Muslims as two different nations he was being less than original. The founder of Aligarh College had said that long ago.

"Is it possible", he said in his speech titled One Country, Two Nations delivered at Meerut on March 16, 1888, "that under these circumstances two nations - the Mohammedans and the Hindus - could sit on the same throne and remain equal in power? Most certainly not. It is necessary that one of them should conquer the other. To hope that both could remain equal is to desire the impossible and the inconceivable.

At the same, time you must remember that although the number of Mohammedans is less than that of the Hindus, and although they contain far fewer people who have received a higher English education, yet they must not be considered insignificant or weak. Probably they would by themselves be enough to maintain their position. But suppose they were not.

Then our Musalman brothers, the Pathans, would come out as a swarm of locusts from their mountain valleys, and make rivers of blood flow from their frontier on the north to the extreme end of Bengal. This thing - who after the departure of the English would be conquerors would rest on God's will. But until one nation has conquered the other and made it obedient, peace cannot reign in the land." (100 Best pre-Independence Speeches 1870-1947, Harper Collins India, 1998, pp 20-21)

"The university (AMU) tarana (song) does not contain a single word in praise of India but it glorifies such things as the evenings of Egypt and the mornings of Shiraj. The university flag has greater resemblance with the flags of Muslim countries, with moon and palm tree stamped on it, than with that of India." (Aligarh Muslim University and Muslim Politics by Dr SS Gupta, 1992, p 79) Syed Ahmed Khan, according to MJ Akbar, "Consciously or unconsciously, created the groundwork for community-based politics, with all its attendant consequences.

It is no surprise that his college at Aligarh became the intellectual cauldron for the ideas which later created Pakistan. He himself articulated the arguments which became constants in discussion about Muslims till 1947." (Nehru: The Making of India, Roli Books, p 17)

Ideally, AMU, after Partition, should have been packed off to Pakistan, and the building given away to any Hindu, Sikh or Jain college or university uprooted from West Punjab and Sindh on quid pro quo basis. Thanks to our secular establishment, AMU did not exhaust itself in the making of Pakistan.

Sir Syed Ahmed Khan's policy 'if you can't beat them, join them' continues to guide Muslims in partitioned India. Like Sir Syed declared British, the earlier adversary for Muslims, as 'People of Book' and hence worthy of alliance, Muslims in independent India declared their earlier adversary Congress, as 'secularists and worthy of friendship. The objective, in both cases, was to thwart any nationalistic resurgence.

Courtesy: The Pioneer, January 13, 2006