Saudi Gazette

JEDDAH — “It is very seldom that a person is reviled by both the majority community in a country for being minority-centered and a large chunk of the minority community for hurting its religious ethos and creed,” a noted Indian academician has said about Sir Syed, founder of the prestigious Aligarh Muslim University in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

“Sir Syed was a versatile man. His vision, his foresightedness is unmatched. His multifaceted services for the Muslim community and his country can never be overlooked when one talks about the great strides taken by India in almost all the fields since independence,” said Prof. Akhtarul Wasey, president of Maulana Azad University based in Jodhpur in the northwestern Indian state of Rajasthan.

In an exclusive interview to Saudi Gazette, Padma Shri-laureate Prof. Wasey, who was in the Kingdom recently to be the guest of honor at Sir Syed Day function organized by the Jeddah chapter of Aligarh Muslim University Old Boys Association, said Sir Syed was accused of siding with the British in the first war of independence (the 1857 mutiny). “But it was his vision, his foresight that he continued to side with East India Company. He knew the outcome of the war; it would be a clear defeat at the hands of a much superior power which was armed with the most modern weaponry. And that the loss resulted in crushing the morale of those involved in the freedom movement,” Prof. Wasey said.

“Sir Syed not only refused to be honored by East India Company after the mutiny was put down, he wrote a book on the causes of the failure of the rebellion. That book was sent to members of British parliament and Queen Victoria. It was partly due to Sir Syed’s efforts that the East India Company was dissolved and India came to be administered directly by the British government,” he said.

Sir Syed, Prof. Wasey said, always believed in the pluralistic nature of Indian society and ceaselessly worked for national integration and communal harmony and in safeguarding the cultural ethos of Hindustan. In fact, the one of the last articles written by Sir Syed was on the need to have a ban on cow slaughter, Prof. Wasey said. The article exhorted Muslims to stop cow slaughter out of respect for the Hindu sentiments.

Sir Syed was keen to ameliorate the condition of the weaker sections of the society. He did not confine himself to the Muslim community but worked for the greater cause of India and the Indians and it is no wonder, he said, that the first graduate of Aligarh Muslim University was Babu Ishwar Prasad.

Aligarh Muslim University, he said, has churned out illustrious personalities who have created a niche for themselves in almost all fields — literary, linguistic, social, cultural religious and political — in independent India. “These beacons of light were the product of the movements associated with the university. During the independence movement, the AMU had Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Dr. Zakir Hussain, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai, Dr. Syed Mehmood, and so on and so forth who brought laurels to our country in varied fields,” he said.

India, he said, these days is passing through turbulent times. “If we have to overcome the forces of evil which are out to tarnish the secular and synthetic fabric of our great country, we will have to dig into our glorious past and see how then leaders maintained our togetherness, the cohesion, unity and our solidarity and surmounted the varied challenges of those times,” he said.

“Irrespective of their caste and religious affiliations, it is Indians who make the country stronger and its unity and integrity is of paramount importance to all of them,” he said. The progress, development and the onward march of our nation will benefit all segments of the society. “Therefore, I believe, to enable our great nation to achieve further glory, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians and all others must realize that what is good for them is good for India and vice versa,” he said.

On a lighter note, the noted academician was asked about reports circulating in Lutyens’ Delhi that his name was being considered for the vice chancellorship of New Delhi-based Jamia Millia Islamiya University. “Let’s see,” he said with a playful but meaningful smile.