Opinion No Jamia ghetto,please
Why we must rethink the universitys minority status.
My father said adaab throughout his life, she said,He worked in Jamia till he died and that was Jamias culture which we learnt as children. But now,I have understood how adaab is not the correct greeting. Its okay with non-Muslims. But to a Muslim,you must always say assalaam waleikum peace be upon you. Isnt that a good thing to say?
For someone with a Muslim name who had just walked in saying adaab,perhaps this was meant as a chastisement. I,too,learnt to say adaab as a child. Adaab and Khuda hafiz,and have held on to both,despite a growing popularity of assalaam waleikum and Allah hafiz. As the discourse around identity gets increasingly overpowered by simplistic,unidimensional articulations,I hold on to them,more fiercely. These may be fragments of a nostalgic past but their gradual disappearance is linked to the hardening of positions the voices that speak of minority appeasement and those that seek to bestow minority status on individuals and institutions.
Recently,Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi was granted minority status,a first for a Central university. As someone who studied there,who has lived cheek by jowl with the university and has produced work there,I see this as another sad link in a growing chain that seeks to corral people. It is part of the transformation which builds malls and gated residential colonies,which issues identity cards and gate passes for domestic help to enter,which makes women believe they are expressing agency when they choose to fast on karva chauth or wear the veil. The culture of Jamia was bound to change. The direction of change also seems to be in keeping with these globalised times in which new borders are erected to deal with the bewildering dissolution of old ones.
Let me say,at the outset,that I am a privileged Muslim. My great-grandfather was one of Jamias founders. My family has studied in Delhis best colleges and is active in national-level politics. So,yes,I will never need reservation. However,I am not opposed to reservation per se. I believe that centuries of oppression can make the use of merit as a qualifying tool quite meaningless. I also believe that affirmative action is necessary to redress the long history of violence perpetrated by the caste system. But is Jamias minority status the same thing?
The aim of caste-based reservations is to scale exclusionary walls and introduce diversity into spaces where access has been denied,either in institutionalised or in informal ways. But the granting of minority status to Jamia operates to erect walls and make the space the preserve of one community. By allowing the university to reserve 50 per cent of the seats for Muslims,educational prospects for young Muslims may see an improvement and there is no doubt that this needs improvement. But will these improved educational prospects actually help these young men and women to go on to lead non-ghettoised lives? Will it make available for them jobs that have been denied for so long? Will it open up housing opportunities? Will it make financial credit easier?
There is a complex web of reasons that creates the sorry state of education among Muslims today. Ordinary Muslims face shocking levels of discrimination in our country. But the answer is not to create a walled-in ghetto. Physically,Jamia is the focal point of a growing landscape of housing projects,a testament to the fact that housing is simply unavailable for Muslims in most other parts of Delhi. There are people here who would choose to live elsewhere,there are people who could afford to live elsewhere. But they do not. They live in densely populated colonies around Jamia,and justify to themselves that they are among their own. And while own could be a dynamic interplay of class,language,district and religion,the diversity of Muslim communities in India ends up being articulated only in terms of a simplistic,monolithic religious identity. It is this that those who look in from the outside see. A sense of own that may be many things,but is certainly,predominantly Muslim. Thus,the ghetto is perpetuated. With the granting of minority status to Jamia,the physical ghetto finds its equivalent in the educational space. If youre Muslim,you will find a college seat here more easily than you could elsewhere. Just as you can find an apartment here that you cant elsewhere. The immediate need is taken care of and in the process,a sense of community is constructed. But,what about those desires that seek other forms of community,those existences that dont conform to the constructions,those imaginations that search for new landscapes? If we want to question the ways of seeing by those who look in,surely we need to question the ways of being by those who reside within.
While talking to a family whose 12-year-old daughter studies in the Jamia school,the father told me why he had chosen Jamia mainstream education with a Muslim culture. Was it necessary,I asked,for the school space to deliver the latter? Was the domestic domain not enough for that? Of course, he said,But which good school will give us admission? There are thousands of stories of rejection and while some continue to brave the admission process for mainstream private schools,many dont even try. The growing demand has led to the mushrooming of private schools that peddle this marketable combination of English-medium education and Islamic values. Hundreds of children in Jamias neighbourhood go to these schools. They will spend their 12-odd school years with others from similar backgrounds,taught by teachers from similar backgrounds,playing with neighbours from similar backgrounds. Their only exposure to difference,as opposed to what is their own,will be the media and the malls. With Jamias minority status,they can continue living that life,with meagre opportunities for engaging with the other. Perhaps,that is what is being sought. The lines have to be kept in place,the boxes neatly stacked. So,when France votes to make the wearing of the veil illegal and when minarets get banned in Switzerland,there is a small pocket in my corner of the world that will resonate. The ghetto will be perpetuated. The other neatly boxed in.
As for me,with my easy privileges,I will continue to say adaab and Khuda hafiz. Indeed,in the narrative of transformation from adaab to assalaam waleikum,lies an ugly,twisted history of the Babri Masjid,Gujarat and so many other spaces. But raising our voice against one cannot drown out the silence on the other.
Mishra is a writer and documentary filmmaker whose film,The House on Gulmohar Avenue,is set in the neighbourhoods around Jamia Millia Islamia,Delhi,express@expressindia.com
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