Universities are for a higher purpose

What the recent events at Aligarh Muslim University really tell us

About five month ago Aligarh Muslim University AMU was in a turmoil. Two students had been killed and the administration was moribund. Vice-Chancellor Naseem quietly abdicated.

A month later a new vice-chancellor was ushered in with fanfare. He made the much-needed changes in the administrative staff. Most, who claim to be in the know, seemed to have approved. Suddenly, on September 12, the news of the rape of a student in the Abdullah Girls Collage emerged. On September 16, a student was murdered in the heart of the campus by unknown assailants. These two events are unspeakably horrible and the culprits must be brought to the bar of justice. Instead, they trigger a violent protest and the university is closed for a indefinite period. It is a slideback to nightmarish yesterday again.

Terrible things happen from time to time. How we react to them becomes a measure of our civilisation and courage. It appears that we keep repeating the same mistakes. Rape and murder are criminal offences of an exceedingly grave nature, and require thorough police investigation. But they are not, and cannot be construed as an internal disciplinary matter of the university. Mechanisms in place to handle such cases exist in the penal code, even if the wheels of criminal justice grind slowly. That is where the clout of the university administration and the political leverage of the students and the community could have made a difference.

It appears that the university8217;s administrators do not know how to respond to such events. Neither do the administrators know how to convey to the students and their parents that they are not asleep at the wheel. The students, or many of them, have no idea of the purpose of the university. It appears that they only wait for a provocation and then go on a rampage.

Instead of that, they could have given a little time to the administrators to gather their wits and take action. Granted, past administrations have from time to time been corrupt or inept. But this should have provoked the students to keep a close watch on how their university is being handled. They could have written petitions and, in the absence of a proper response, carried out peaceful vigils. Disruption does not help them.

Islam teaches us self-control and the relentless pursuit of justice through right means, avoiding injury to the innocent others. In the land of Mahatma Gandhi, the lessons of peaceful protests are written in our history books. They ought to be engraved in our hearts. Sadly, such principles are forgotten even in institutions of learning.

The first responsibility of the administration is to bring the rapist and murderers to justice. The second is to take much-needed steps to make the campus safe. And the third task is to punish those students who destroy and burn university property and disrupt the educational process by force.