The AMU Teachers’ Association must admit its fault that it failed to intervene to reassure the agitated and beleaguered students in time.
We are teachers of a residential university and therefore, we must intervene. Its GBM yesterday was too late.
Some student netas were hyperactive in registering FIR against Shehla Rashid, but they were nowhere to be seen in lodging FIR against Mukesh Lodhi and his cohorts.
There were student netas who lodged FIR against few people who had taken dinner in Delhi in a Ramzan evening, but they were nowhere to be seen to lodge FIR against Mukesh Lodhi and his cohorts.
Such “enthusiasts” are in hiding now? Are they ideological cousins of the likes of Mukesh Lodhi?
The point should be clear, we failed to assert against the conservative and reactionary forces within the campus. It is this conservative ethos which preferred inviting Owaisi while excluding parliamentarians of other ideological shades. The general body of students must assert against this kind of self serving and opportunistic selectivity. Such self serving student netas must be exposed and isolated.
Teachers need to fight out all conservative forces. They have to work harder towards reclaiming the liberal secular space inside the campuses. Only then the republic can really be reclaimed.
One hopes, the AMUTA, the AMUSU and the AMU community as a whole, each one of these give a serious and sincere thought to such issues of pressing concerns.
Let the teachers subject themselves to serious self introspection. Where did they go wrong? After all how come the reactionary forces among our students are able to prevail over the majority of the progressives?
And the moot question remains unanswered- Who is protecting Mukesh Lodhi and Ajay Singh? Why the AMU complaint is not converting into FIR? Why can’t the AMUTA, AMUSU and other people press to go to the magistrate if the police is refusing to register their complaint as an FIR? Does that complaint really name Mukesh Lodhi and Ajay Singh ?
Why haven’t the students asked this question to their AMUSU representatives?
(Author Mohammad Sajjad is Professor at Centre of Advanced Study in History, Aligarh Muslim University. This article is reproduced from his facebook post.)
