AMU at the Crossroads

Ref ranjit #48

[...As you know muslims have been disadvantaged by the migration of their elite to Pakistan...]

If folks like Mullah32 are the ``Muslim elite`` you are talking about, there is absolutely NO hope for Indian Muslims.

Re:anil#47

While I agree with most of what you are saying, I feel that it is in India`s best interests to take special steps to strongly promote the integration of the muslim community into the education system. As you know muslims have been disadvantaged by the migration of their elite to Pakistan and their relatively backward state in India both economically and socially. A minority community can retreat into a ghetto mindset when it feels that it is not a part of the national mainstream. An example of that is the preference for madrassa education which is more in the comfort zone of muslims, although it delivers nothing to the students.

From a national perspective, having 120 million people in a backward mode is a huge waste of human resources and a handicap towards our goal of economic advancement. If you factor in the potential of jihadi activities propagated by our unfriendly neighbors, you have potentially a very volatile mix that can explode in our faces. In the extreme case, we see such situations developing in Europe where the majority/minority gap is humungous leading to major social unstability.

I would like the government to invest in massive funding of primary and secondary education for muslims. Government schools can be opened and funded that provide free education to each and every muslim kid and makes it mandatory for them to attend school. These would be in addition to existing government schools with focused funding to pull in muslims students away from madrassahs and acquire secular education. I would also like to see scholarships setup for smart muslim kids from poor families who finish school and are likey to attend college. This will accelerate their integration into the middle class. Vocational training programs can be setup for the others so that they can have employable skills. All in all, we need a concerted focus from the government on education of the muslim community so that they can become a part and parcel of the mainstream. Beyond this, I definitely support a full and fair meritocracy for professional education and employment but these steps will give the muslim community a chance to pull themselves by the bootstraps and participate in the Indian juggernaut.

Religious bias, in symbols, in courses, and among faculty, needs to be removed from college level educations in India in symbol. There can be only zero tolerance for religious bias. Therefore, ``Hindu`` from Banares Hindu University and ``Muslim`` from Aligarh Muslim University should be dropped. Such differentiations are unnecessary in modern India. Bollywood and Cricket team have a fair representation of region and religious communities. No one says Bollywood Hindu Industry, Bollywood Muslim Industry etc. Some people may like Shah Rukh Khan for being a muslim, while most may like him for his acting or other personal reasons. The same goes for the Cricket team too. The days of Hindu Gymkhana and Muslim Gymkhana went long ago with the partition.

No one can say ``Hindu Pani`` or ``Muslim Pani`` today, and get away with it. Likewise Education must be made as one of the fundamental rights granted to of every Indian citizen. This should be enshrined in the constitution of India through a suitable amendment. Education in modern India is as important to live as water is, and is available as easily as the water. This needs to be the message delivered to each Indian citizen.

Transparency comes when hundreds of millions are watching, and have access to media. ``Sa Re Ga Ma Pa`` is an example of a meritocracy in private set up. There may be biases, but converting a bias into blatant discrimination would be difficult in the public glare.

The primary and secondary education initiative are entrusted in the hands of local government and communities. These can be strengthened to reflect improtance of eductation.

The college level education can only promote meritocracy. Anyone who deserves it, and wants it, must not be denied college education. Merit based admission process must be religion blind. The colleges can guarantee admission to top ten percent of the higher secondary graduating class in their neighborhood, and be sensitive to the local social and economic environment. In the absence of, or limited campus housing the colleges tend to serve the local communities. Regional and national level colleges need to have different charter.

The higher secondary schools can cater to local communities special needs, as they are community based. In case, a community makes their higher secondary schools courses overly out of main stream, then they must be held accountable if their students cannot get into regional and national level colleges. All local, regional and national level colleges, like IITs, should be positioned as center of excellence in the neighborhood, region, or at national level. The schools which feed college education have been balanced and take care of the special social and economic needs to the local communities, the college education will cater to local, regional and national needs for growth, and not religion. A community can have a religious seminary to cater local needs, but that is another subject altogether.

Anil Kapuria

Dear Farzana -- why don`t you get an article on Indo-Pak (Hindutva vs Jihadi) cricket for these gentlemen to play somewhere else -- instead of playing on this AMU campus......:)

#42 Mr. Raqnjit singh...... you have some point. I made my daughters to go for earl education. One studied maths, one mechanical engg and youngest made better she got in civil engg and became engineer. She went to usa and got assitantship ( for good marks and helping teacher in correcting exams home work etc), she used to get unbelievable money ($7000/per year ie 420,000 Rupees/ year). She married foreigner in America but I have forgiven her.

It very disturbing and sad the indian cricket team got lucky break. I think better will be to take one extra day to play and complete game as lots of people have paid money to see ``express running wild and taking care of wild indians like american cowboys``. Only good thing is time will be saved and wasteful holiday of victory will not be celebrated as national holiday. It looks childish when supreme leadership give holiday when we win aginst India, how it helps for Battle of Kashmir is question. Second test will be good as outraged IRP team will take on india and little antic of Dravid and virender will be put to end. Watch Pindi Express is raging hot and fast touching 0ver 100 mph, both can not play good at that speed. Problem is pitch no good, its batters dream, need to put lots of grass and IRPian bowlers can make magic. We need fast pitches to help P.Express. This useless match and Indians have escaped due to nature`s help.

Re:ahmedmadani

You wrote.``Education is overemphasized in India they should look more in business in making money. May be its has become prerequisite to get husband or wife in India, Pathetic situation I guess. There are no jobs and people are fighting to waste their youthful years.``

Madaniji, now you have said something that is both against hinduism and islam. Hindus believe in ``Vidvan Sarvasyapujyate`` i.e. a scholar is respected by everyone. Islam says go to China to get knowledge. Aapne to bilkul jahilon wali baat kah di ki education is not important - your own daughter is studying engineering.

Also, there are huge number of jobs in India. In fact, more jobs than qualified candidates to fill them. If there were good relations with Pakistan, some of your unemployed could find work in India. Khair, jaise aap logon ki marzi!!

Nature is giving disadvantage to Pakistan. Yesterday as Pindi express was getting in action to demolish India visibility made problem and India got chance to escape onslaught of raging bowling and express had started hitting record speeds. To day same visibility reduced play stopped. Is this conspiracy ( bribing by indians?) when Pakistanis in less lightb were whipping Harbhagan, Kumble, Agarkar, Ganguli, pathan , tendulkor, yuvraj ( oh they whipped all) they never complained to stop match. But indians just want to avoid play complain of less light. Again they are getting good chance as at 132 no loss, Dravid and Sehwag can take nap and get ready to bat, is this just ? Its not but just now nature is against us and trying to save India.
Mr. Shridhar,Ms.Sandhu you comments are not appreciated by me at all. I do not read them sorry.

Are there any hindus who actually want to attend AMU? For what? Can they get a job afterwards?

The general problem with all the Muslims, including, Indian Muslims, is that they see the world through the periscope of Arabia and the Middle-east. The rest of the world, its culture, its thought process, history etc. does not exists from them. What is required for the benefit for all the Muslims is that they are taken out of their this Arabian mindset.

The institutions like AMU in fact promote this kind of isolation amongst the Muslims. In case, some kind of reservations is indeed required by Muslims in professional courses like Engineering and Medicine, then instead of confining it to just one institution and labelling it with ``Minority`` status, it would be much wiser to distribute the seats of this one institution to other centers.

The revoking of Minority status of AMU by the HC is a step in the right direction.

# 38,
LOL, mad ani, is clearly schizophrenic, he is hallucinating most of the times.

re:#36 by ahmedmadani
Ahmed ``mad``ani,
I think u should not worry too much about cricket. That can cause you more headaches and make your ``schizophrenia`` worse.
Cricket is the only thing where Pakis come together. In everything else, they seem to be fighting each other. It is also the only thing where Pakis have a chance to beat the Indians.
BTW, what is your ``zaat``, Mr ``Mad``ani? Perhaps you are simply a ``badzaat``.
Sridhar

Indian cricket needs reservations. I am told Mr. Ganguli ( Bengali brahmin),Kumble, Dravid ( Madrasi brahmins), Agarkar and Tendulkar ( marathi brahmins) are all bhats. This is too much almost 50% seats on team of brahmins. While brahmin numbers are less than 3% and falling fast as they breed less compared to others but seat of 50%. Brahmin politicians do that trick. Communist bengal Chief minister is brahmin so he plays politics and gets Ganguli in team, Dravid and kumble full backing from madrasi chief minister lady and sharad pawar marathi brahmin so Tendular and Agarkar get definite seat. This is reservation in reserve.
While low paying jobs all reserved for backward people, when I asked fellow traveller why all airhostess on indian airlines ugly.( I had visited few years back).
Anyway that ganguli is easy target for Pindi express, he took good catch yesterday. Our captain is doing harm to team by not giving more time to Pindi express. Express is like big jumbo jet it takes time to control so has to have run. He was about to get deadly and fast but they changed balling at wrong time, express need time to fine tune then its bulldozer machine will bury indians.
Education is overemphasized in India they should look more in business in making money. May be its has become prerequisite to get husband or wife in India, Pathetic situation I guess. There are no jobs and people are fighting to waste their youthful years.

Indian cricket needs reservations. I am told Mr. Ganguli ( Bengali brahmin),Kumble, Dravid ( Madrasi brahmins), Agarkar and Tendulkar ( marathi brahmins) are all bhats. This is too much almost 50% seats on team of brahmins. While brahmin numbers are less than 3% and falling fast as they breed less compared to others but seat of 50%. Brahmin politicians do that trick. Communist bengal Chief minister is brahmin so he plays politics and gets Ganguli in team, Dravid and kumble full backing from madrasi chief minister lady and sharad pawar marathi brahmin so Tendular and Agarkar get definite seat. This is reservation in reserve.
While low paying jobs all reserved for backward people, when I asked fellow traveller why all airhostess on indian airlines ugly.( I had visited few years back).
Anyway that ganguli is easy target for Pindi express, he took good catch yesterday. Our captain is doing harm to team by not giving more time to Pindi express. Express is like big jumbo jet it takes time to control so has to have run. He was about to get deadly and fast but they changed balling at wrong time, express need time to fine tune then its bulldozer machine will bury indians.
Education is overemphasized in India they should look more in business in making money. May be its has become prerequisite to get husband or wife in India, Pathetic situation I guess. There are no jobs and people are fighting to waste their youthful years.

i think some of us are stuck in the past. the modern education is no more imparted by AMU..the new schools are jamia millia, hamdard in dilli, ajuman-e-islam, saboo siddik and rizvi college in bombay, andhra muslim college and several others in hydrabad etc. the AMU belongs to the past.

P.S:
Just to keep things in perspective, I have been on record that some backward muslim communities (in other words, castes) should be included in the reserved quota for backward castes.