Destroying AMU

The proposed decision to reserve 50 per cent of seats in post-graduate courses for Muslims in Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) is an educationally retrograde and politically fraught step. It will only accelerate the decline of a once great institution. The ostensible rationale for it is that AMU was empowered to especially promote the educational and cultural advancement of the Muslims of India. But it is a mistake to think that reservations for Muslims is a good way to achieve that objective. Institutions are able to help their students only if they preserve a brand name that is associated with excellence rather than communal identity. Reservations is most likely to harm the market credibility of even good Muslim students who, through no fault of theirs, are now going to be associated with an institution that does not openly honour merit.

Second, the cultural and educational advancement of Muslims crucially hinges on giving them access to institutions of high quality, where they can form networks that help their advancement. It does not depend on creating institutions that ghettoise them. It should be the task of state-funded institutions to create common identities as citizens, not to reproduce entrenched communal identities. Aligarh was exemplary in its refusal to discriminate on religious grounds. It is particularly odd that a university that, for the better part of a century tenaciously hung to this sound principle, should abandon it in 2005. This despite the fact that a substantial number of its eminent faculty is opposing the decision. This step therefore cannot but be read as motivated by political considerations. The government should recognise that it will be politically detrimental to the long-term interests of the very minorities it is ostensibly trying to help. Hindutva forces have always thrived on the sentiment that minorities get special privileges and refuse to integrate into the mainstream. The political force of this charge depends, not on its truth as a general statement, but its ability to latch on to what are considered visible concessions. It is precisely what was considered the politics of minorityism that first paved the way for the BJP’s rise. It is still too early to be confident that that kind of politics will not rear its ugly head again.

Of course such political considerations, or fear of a backlash, should not come in the way of a decision that can be justified on principle. But in the present case, reservations flout every principle: they subvert the identity of AMU, they are not warranted on grounds of justice, and will only undermine the educational mission of an important institution.