Removal of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s portrait from Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) has triggered protests after a lawmaker from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) objected to its presence there. The BJP legislator Satish Gautam claimed that there was no justification for the presence of Mr Jinnah’s portrait on the campus. Gutam in a letter addressed to the university’s vice-chancellor, Tariq Mansoor, said, “It is fine if Jinnah has been revered in Pakistan after partition. But his portrait should not be put up here in India”. Mr Jinnah, he said, was responsible for the creation of Pakistan, a country that had always caused problems for India. Instead of putting up Mr Jinnah’s portrait, the varsity administration should celebrate the contributions of Raja Mahendra Pratap and Sir Syed Ahmed Khan who played a crucial role in establishing the university. The university administration, however, said the portrait had been up for several decades as Mr Jinnah was a donor and had been granted life membership of the university’s student union. “Mr Jinnah was also accorded life membership of the AMUSU in 1938. He was the founder member of the University Court in 1920 and also a donor,” said AMU spokesperson Shafey Kidwai, adding the renowned jurist and politician had been granted membership before the demand for Pakistan had been raised by the Muslim League. Following the BJP leader’s demand to remove the portrait, members of several groups broke into the varsity campus, mounting protests in which students were injured. According to BBC Urdu, dozens of people were injured when clashes erupted on Wednesday during an event organised to confer life membership of the student union on India’s former vice president Hamid Ansari. The president of the AMU Students Union, Mashkoor Ahmad Usmani, was among those injured. The function had to be cancelled. Before Mr Ansari arrived on the campus, a large number of Hindutva activists gathered outside the Baab-i-Syed gate and started chanting slogans against Mr Jinnah. Police had to lob teargas shells and resort to baton-charge to disperse the crowd, leaving several of them injured.
Indians, particularly those ascribed to right wing parties or groups, are so obsessed with hatred towards Pakistan that they are not ready to accept the historic realities even after the passage of seven decades. And amongst all of these rightist groups the ruling party, which has close ideological and organisational links to the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is the one that is thriving on hate-mongering rhetoric. Since a long time it has been hall mark of the BJP to whip up anti-Muslim and anti-Pakistan rhetoric apparently to appease its hard-line constituents at home. The recent episode at Aligarh University is one such example which speaks volumes about this extremist mindset and intolerance that on one hand has overwhelmed the Indian society while on the other it has marginalized the beleaguered minorities living in the country. But while digging deep into the matter there’s more to this than meets the eye. The rising Hindu extremist in India is not just a threat to the existence of minorities but breeding grounds of extremism across India has now become a threat to peace and security in south Asia. So far as the BJP legislator’s objection and demand for removal of Quad-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s portrait from the AMU is concerned, it is a shameful act of hatred and bigotry that amply demonstrates the rising fanaticism in India.
