As Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) crossed the threshold into a new millennium around the year 2000, it inherited the severe structural fractures, securitized governance, and political anxieties of the preceding decade, 1990-99 (Beyondheadlines.In, 23 Oct 2026). Just as the 1990s had been defined by a deep institutional crisis of conscience and campus chaos—surrounding the turbulent socio-political aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition—the dawn of the 2000s demanded radical introspection and structural overhaul.
In July 2000, a critical editorial, “The Agenda for AMU for a Fresh start”, Muslim India, monthly, edited by the prominent retired Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer turned parliamentarian Syed Shahabuddin (1935–2017), laid bare the urgent administrative reforms the University desperately required. The editorial underscored how AMU was floundering under systemic decay, calling for a rigorous cleansing of governance to rescue the minority institution from administrative inertia and internal rot.
He highlighted critical administrative reforms needed at Aligarh Muslim University through four core themes, such as, (1). Administrative Inertia and Internal Rot; and addressed institutional stagnation, compromised efficiency, and factionalism diverting AMU from its mission. (2). Clean Governance and Accountability: Calling for a rigorous cleansing of governance structures, transparent recruitment, and strict academic standards. (3). Emphasizing that preserving AMU’s minority character requires high academic excellence, financial integrity, and administrative competence rather than relying only on rhetoric. (4). Remedial Agenda: Outlining concrete reforms to restructure administration, restore discipline, and ensure institutional autonomy free from malpractice.
However, rather than seizing this reformist imperative under the stewardship of forward-looking intellectuals and seasoned administrators like Hamid Ansari, IFS (AMU-VC, 2000-2002), the decade of the 2000s witnessed a profound institutional regression. Soon after Ansari’s brief tenure of 22 months concluded in 2002, a predatory commercial culture took firm root, within the campus, wherein positions of academic administration and university spaces were systematically subordinated to personal enrichment and clientelism. A tightly knit network of teacher-administrators began aggressively lobbying for and securing lucrative campus contracts—ranging from purchases, supply tenders and civil construction works to operating residential dining halls and campus canteens, medicine shops, vehicle-parking, on heavily subsidized rents. It is believed that some of these kinds of teacher-administrators turned into be-nami partners in such supplies. These patronage networks transformed the University’s economic resources into private fiefdoms, neutralizing administrative oversight and binding institutional loyalty through financial dependency rather than academic merit. No time-bound external investigations into all these corrosive networks have ever been conducted.
As these commercial and political cliquish networks expanded their reach, they solidified into an entrenched oligarchy, effectively hijacking the entire AMU administration, including its apex decision-making body, the Executive Council (EC). In fact, the lavish dinners offered (and other expenses on populism and freebies) by the teachers contesting elections to fill in four (of the over 28) seats in the EC, and their pomp, “jalwa” and arrogance for the three years tenure, in itself reveal too much about the muddied role, nature, character of the members, and of the body (EC), as a whole, which has an exceptional role of empanelling its next VC. The EC, heavily and exceptionally dominated by internal members, has sadly turned into an “incestuous club” (The Print.In, March 6, 2023).
Since 2017, the AMU hasn’t seen external professor as its VC, only because of such type of opaque Selection procedure. Most insiders strongly feel that it is unlikely that the AMU will now be getting any external as its VC in the days to come, if the current arrangement of empanelment is allowed to continue. It is this “incestuous club” which has remained criminally silent on the self admitted fee scam (and other scams), which involves teacher-administrators, yet, the culprit is not even replaced, what to say of punitive action! All these have been reported to the CAG of India, UGC, Ministry of Education, CVC and the Visitor; certain cases to the CBI whose recommendation of punitive action remains still un-implemented, or, at best, ridiculously under-implemented).
The UGC Regulations of 2010 and 2018, clauses 7.2. ii and iii, therefore remains un-adopted by AMU, with impunity, on this specific aspect of selection procedure of AMU-VC. A strange exceptionalism, with extremely deleterious implications! Otherwise, in all other Central universities, the EC nominates two members from outside the home-university to comprise a three member Search cum Selection Committee. The third member (of the Search cum Selection Committee to empanel VC) is inserted by the Visitor (President of Indian Republic). This arrangement in other Central universities ensures at least this much that the internal cliques will not manipulate the composition of the EC to empanel only the internal colleagues, and this is how the oligarchy of dangerously entrenched internal clouts will run the show.
Syed Shahabuddin’s above mentioned editorial (Muslim India, monthly, No. 211, July 2000) wrote, “Several well-intentioned persons including Mr. Saiyid Hamid [1920-2014], former Vice-Chancellor [1980-85] and today the foremost living Muslim-educationist in India, have been emphasizing the impropriety inherent in the procedure for the selection of the Vice-Chancellor”.
Rather than serving as custodians of transparency and student welfare, these powerful teacher-cliques manipulated governance structures to protect their vested interests and suppress accountability. This culture of impunity was vividly exposed by the long-suppressed Justice Mathew Committee Report (1997–98). Despite documenting severe recruitment irregularities and financial malpractices, the report was kept hidden in administrative darkness for a decade, finally brought to light only through the intervention of the Right to Information Act of 2005.
As highlighted by this author in his commentary on the campus violence of 16-17 September 2007, “AMU Crisis: Some Questions from an Insider” (published in The Milli Gazette, 01-15 Nov 2007), successive administrations refused to initiate action against those found culpable in the Mathew Committee Report or subsequent flawed recruitments, creating a corrosive legitimacy crisis where moral authority evaporated.
This systemic rot inevitably permeated student life and residential halls, periodically erupting into violent unrest, vandalism, and administrative clampdowns, as shockingly underscored by the campus crises of 2007 and 2009. As this writer noted in 2007, when violent clashes erupted following the tragic killings of students, the administration swiftly and selectively punished protesting students while leaving out the un-named, factionalized teachers who allegedly patronized criminal and corrupt elements completely shielded from inquiry.
The refusal to investigate these clandestine faculty networks—or to scrutinize irregularities such as un-advertised recruitments, illegal annual increments in salaries, illegal placement in the Old Pension Scheme (OPS), numerous financial irregularities (Fee Scam, Indian Express, Dec 6, 2025), and academic plagiarism, and continuously long occupation of statutory positions on ad hoc basis in violation of the UGC—deepened the institutional abyss; elaborated in “What ails Aligarh Muslim University?” (Rediff, 18 November 2009), the persistent administrative failure, erosion of academic standards, and political interference left the historic institution crippled from within. [Also see, “A tale of AMU’s Two Upsurges: 1965 and 2007- 09”, 29 Oct 2009].
The cumulative effect of these institutional manipulations throughout the 2000s paved the way for a regressive structural outcome in the subsequent decade: the unhindered perpetuation of a culture of internal Vice-Chancellors across the 2010s. By systematically shutting out external academic visionaries and inward-looking executive appointments, the oligarchy has successfully institutionalized its grip on power. AMU’s trajectory through the 2000s thus stands as a sobering historical lesson, meticulously documented by contemporary commentators and internal critics alike, showing how unchecked patronage, commercialized contracts, and the evasion of accountability can hollow out a premier seat of learning.
Precisely because of these decades-long persistent problems ruining it, the AMU needs to be rescued immediately from its exceptional arrangement of empanelling VC in violation of the above mentioned clauses of the UGC Regulations 2018. The AMU desperately needs urgent reforms (Rediff.Com, March 7, 2023). The Qaum’s elites don’t seem to be listening to it? Perhaps, the Qaum’s handful of elites are beneficiaries of, and comfortable with, the irregularities? Qaum’s youtubers and portals have got all time to attack Hindutva day in and day out, but they have no time to expose the rot perpetuating within AMU. The State/Regime possibly looks upon it as a hornet’s nest; why should they intervene if the Qaum’s elites themselves are in self-destruction mode (BeyondHeadlines.In, 2 Nov 2023)?
Mohammad Sajjad is a Professor of History at Aligarh Muslim University.
