Brewing controversy: What made AMU VC cancel function in honour of the Jat king

The campus of the Aligarh Muslim University faces the prospect of turning into a political battleground over the proposed celebration of a famed Jat king of yore. At the centre of the possible confrontation is Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh, the erstwhile ruler of Mathura and a student from 1895 to 1907 of the Mohammedan Anglo Oriental College, a constituent college of the present-day AMU. A renowned freedom fighter, he also donated some land to his alma mater on which the AMU campus later came up. He also represented Mathura in Lok Sabha in 1962. His birthday is celebrated every year on 1 December. [caption id=“attachment_1826349” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  AMU VC Zameeruddin Shah. Image courtesy: AMU website[/caption] Last week, during the visit of Bharatiya Janata Party state president Laxmikant Bajpai, local leaders had raised the issue of the commemoration and demanded that AMU should organaise a function in honour of the Raja. BJP leaders then announced that if the AMU administration did not organise a proper function on this occasion, then the party would organise a function at the gate of the university. However, the local SP legislator Zamiullah Khan raised the issue of BJP’s threat with the Chief Minister as well as the senior state minister Mohammad Azam Khan, following which the SP leaders announced they would not allow the BJP to organise the function on the campus and use it to “spread hatred between Jats and Muslims”. AMU Vice-Chancellor Lt Gen (retired) Zameeruddin Shah, reportedly held a late night meeting on Tuesday (25 November) with BJP and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) leaders on the issue. It is learnt that a way out was decided under which the AMU administration would organise a function in the premises of the present-day City School that stands on the land originally donated by the Raja. This place is a little over 5 km away from the main campus. As soon as the news of the late night meeting was leaked on campus, AMU students and teachers erupted in anger and threatened that they would not allow the function to be allowed even inside the school premises. A quick campaign on social media even dubbed the VC to be an “RSS agent” for having met the BJP and ABVP leaders and agreeing to organize the function in school premises. Sensing trouble, the VC decided to scrap the function altogether. In a letter written to the Union Minister for Human Resources Development Smriti Irani on Thursday (28 November), the VC informed her of the decision to not allow any programme on the occasion. In a detailed letter, he warned the minister of “communal conflagration” if the programme to mark the Raja’s birth anniversary was allowed. He did not name either the BJP or SP in his letter, but said that if “certain elements” go ahead with their plans to hold a programme at AMU on 1 December, it could lead to massive student unrest at the campus. The letter said: “Some elements are threatening to hold a demonstration on the grounds that Raja Mahendra Pratap donated large tracts of land for establishment of AMU and should be honoured accordingly. We have always acknowledged that the Raja did lease 3.04 acres of land to AMU in 1929 at a rate of Rs 2 per annum. We are proud of this freedom fighter. However, there were a large number of other donors and the main campus of the AMU was built on a land procured from the British government originally belonging to the Aligarh cantonment,” he said. The VC acknowledged that in order to defuse the situation, it had been decided to hold a joint celebration on the Raja’s birth anniversary and the decision was taken at a meeting on 25 November. “At the instance of some ex-servicemen of this district, who offered to mediate, I held a meeting with representatives of some outfits who are threatening to hold the demonstration. The idea was to defuse the situation and we agreed to hold a joint celebration of the Raja’s anniversary.” Without naming any party in his letter, the VC said that “In view of the threat of disturbance from these people, claiming to be affiliated to various political parties/outfits, another political outfit opposing them joined the fray and announced that they would not allow the rally to be held. This political gamesmanship, if allowed to proceed, has potential for serious trouble.” The university administration had therefore decided not to allow or hold any celebration in this regard at all. Clearly, the threat of the SP not to allow any function in AMU would have led to a confrontation with the organisers and the VC, understandably, is chary of courting another controversy so soon after the uproar over disallowing girls from visiting the university library. The VC had reportedly said that the presence of girls would have a disturbing effect on the library’s atmosphere since there was not enough space in it, his detractors had termed his views as being anti-women and curbing the freedom of movement of girls on the campus. The BJP, meanwhile, has not declared whether it will go ahead with the function at the AMU gate as originally planned.