It was not his impressive biodata — he had been an inspiring teacher of economics, Indian envoy to then West Germany, vice-chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University and also chairman of the 11th Finance Commission — that was being discussed at the bungalow in Sunder Nagar, where his body lay this evening. Mourners, paying their homage to A.M. Khusro, who died at the age of 78 last night after a bypass surgery, recalled his ‘‘modesty’’, ‘‘generosity’’, his role as a torch-bearer of the ‘‘refined Hyderabadi culture, which he had inherited because of his family’s proximity with the Nizams’’. Survived by a daughter and a son, Khusro was a connoisseur of Urdu culture. His family followed the Sufi tradition of the Chishtia-Nizamia order. He chaired the Aga Khan Foundation and was a director of The Indian Express Newspapers (Mumbai). He was also the Editor of The Financial Express. One of his students, Professor Akhiarul Wasey, director of the Zakir Hussain Institute of Islamic Studies in Delhi, recollected the days when Khusro, their VC, democratised the university’s functioning and gave it an identity much larger than ‘‘a minority institution’’. Khusro set up special coaching classes for students at Aligarh to help them in the civil services examination. Former PM I.K. Gujral, who knew him from the time he was short-lsited as AMU vice-chancellor, said he accomplished each of his tasks most competently. Apart from the 11 books he published, Khusro was a member of the Indian delegation of UNCTAD II in 1968. He had led the Indian delegation from the Planning Commission to the Gosplan of the Soviet Union in 1984. An LLD (Honoris Causa) from the University of Leeds, from where he had earlier done his Ph.D., Khusro inspired generations of students. That explains why professors from Delhi School of Economics and AMU, who had either been taught by him or had come close to him, were present at his Sunder Nagar bungalow this evening.
