New Delhi: Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) today established ‘Mushirul Hasan Endowment (MHE)’ as a mark of respect for Prof. Mushirul Hasan’s commitment to the JMI and to the pursuit of academic excellence. 15th August is the birth anniversary of Prof. Hasan.
JMI established the endowment on the request of Prof. Zoya Hasan, wife of late Prof. Mushirul Hasan. She proposed to donate ₹1.50 crores to the university for the creation of the Endowment.
An institution builder, famous historian, and educationist Prof. Mushirul Hasan devoted the major part of his academic life to the JMI where he taught history for long and served as Pro-Vice-Chancellor and eventually as the Vice-Chancellor.
The Mushirul Hasan Endowment will be used for the following purposes;
1. Annual Mushirul Hasan Post-Doctoral Fellowship – This will be for two semesters or 9 months, which will be tenable at JMI, and which will be open to candidates below the age of 45 in all fields of Humanities and Social Sciences who have completed their Ph.Ds. in any Indian university. Candidates will have to submit their project proposals to the University which will make the final choice. To start with, the fellowship will carry a stipend of ₹50,000/- per month.
2. Two Post-graduates Merit-cum-means Mushirul Hasan Scholarships – These have been proposed for two years and are to be awarded each year to the students of the JMI’s Faculty of Humanities and Faculty of Social Sciences. The details have been proposed as follows:
A fresh M.A. first year student is chosen in year zero, who gets the scholarship for that year and the next. From year 1, therefore there will be two scholarships every year, of which one will go to a second-year M.A. student (who had been the awardee as a first-year student in year zero and would be continuing) and the other to a fresh M.A. first-year student. If in year zero, a female student is chosen and in year 1 a male student, and so on, then the gender balance too can be maintained. Both the students would have to meet both means and merit criteria, and each new scholar will have to be selected from among the list of eligible applicants. To start with, the scholarships will carry a stipend of ₹10,000/- month.
3. Annual Mushirul Hasan Memorial Seminar on any theme related to the contemporary history, society and politics of India – It has been proposed by Prof. Zoya Hasan, that University’s ‘Centre for Dalit and Minorities Studies’ (‘Dr K.R. Narayanan Centre for Dalit and Minorities Studies’), which is not confined to any single discipline but which has an overarching concern spanning all the areas from which the themes of the proposed seminars will be drawn may be entrusted the responsibility for organising this ‘One-day Mushirul Hasan Memorial Seminar’.
For administering the Endowment, a 9 member committee headed by the Vice-Chancellor JMI Prof. Najma Akhtar has also been constituted by the university.
Prof. Zoya Hasan, Prof. Prabhat Patnaik, Professor Emeritus, CESP, JNU, Prof. Suranjana Das, VC, Jadavpur University, Dean, Faculty of Humanities & Languages, JMI, Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, JMI, Head of the Department, History, JMI and the Registrar, JMI who will be the Convenor of the committee.
Earlier, as a mark of respect for Prof. Hasan’s commitment to the JMI, Prof. Zoya Hasan has gifted Prof. Mushirul Hasan’s book collection to the Central Library of the JMI in 2019, together with several other memorabilia including his Padmashri award to the Munshi Premchand Archives, JMI.
