ALIGARH INDIA: At Aligarh Muslim University an island of uneasy calm in a storm of Hindu-Muslim violence that killed scores of people in the city in December a concerned faculty is challenging religious bigotry and political opportunism where they believe it must be fought: in Government offices and the courts.

Professors and administrators use strong language to describe the situation they face asserting that fascism has entered Indian politics in the name of religion

Since Hindu militants began trying on Oct.30 to build a temple on the site of a mosque in Ayodhya at the other end of Uttar Pradesh a state with a large Islamic minority Muslims here have developed an identity crisis a political scientist said.

Aligarh Muslim University one of India’s oldest educational institutions narrowly escaped disaster when false newspaper reports sought to drag its teaching hospital into confrontation with Hindy militants by charging that 78 Hindu patients and attendants had been killed there. Riots broke out in half a dozen cities as the reports spread around the state.

Local Government Decision

At the same time local government officials decided to choose the university and send home its 13000 students 60 to 70 percent of whom are Muslims

At that point Naseem Farooqi an electronic engineer who recently became the university vice chancellor drew the line university has very high secular traditions he said in an interview.

There was no trouble in the university at all he said. All around as people were being pulled off trains and killed pulled off buses and killed. My concern was where do send all these students? The local government does not have the power to choose a university. That power rests with the vice chancellor and the central Government.

On this procedural challenge local officials backed down but not before India’s Government-run television network had broadcast an announcement that the university had been shut. Panicky parents called from all over India and abroad

Preparing a Suit

Mr. Farooqi the equivalent of a college president who spent 40 of his first 70 days in office working under curfew lodged o complaint with the Press Council of India against a local Hindi-language newspaper and is ready to sue it and others for publishing false reports about the medical center the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College Hospital.

The vice chancellor added that the reports were circulated to deflect attention from the deaths of Muslims at the hands of Hindu mobs.

On the eighth of December the Gomti Express train was topped near Aligarh and a number of people were killed be said. To cover up that story a local newspaper in typically fascist style said that 74 people had died in our hospital: The assumption was that they were Hindus this was a totally false story. We checked out every patient.

Problems at Hospital

At the hospital Dr.S .Badrul Hasan the medical superintendent said problems are continuing. He quotes Indian Supreme Court decisions to support his appeal to the city administration to lift restrictions on his ambulances. In Aligarh emergency services and hospital care have become segregated and the wounded suffer Dr-Hasan said he cannot respond to emergency calls many from Muslims who are still the victims of random stabbings and shootings without local government permission. Hindus are going 10 the district government hospital. Dr Hasan called in a limping ambulance driver who he said had been beaten by state police as he tried to pick up victims.

You just cannot assault an ambulance driver Dr. Hasan said. You can stop him you can check him. You can arrest him But you don’t assault him

In her garden Abida Samu Uddin a political science professor discussed her methodical translators of all reporting on the recent violence which has now abated. She plans to document in three languages Hindi Urdu and English the role played by the local press in fanning violence.

Her husband Sami Uddin the university dean is spending 20 hours a day from 6 AM. Until 2 A M: the next morning patrol ling the campus now guarded by paramilitaries from the Central Reserve Police Force.

The Central Reserve Police criticized in Kashmir and Punjab are welcomed here by Muslims who save their most serious charges for the state’s Provincial Armed Constabulary which many accuse of being Hindy militants in police clothes.

At this office under a portrait of Mohandas K. Gandhi an advocate of nonviolence and religious harmony a new Senior Superintendent of Police D.N Samal unambiguously supported the Muslim view that politicians using religion to build vote banks were more often than not at the root of violence here.

2 Journalists Arrested

Mr Samal has arrested two journalists for inciting tensions and he acknowledges that here and everywhere in India more Muslims than Hindus have died. He says he has singled out the troublemakers outsiders and will take action in a planned manner

People here are not criminal he said. But that instinct often comes out in a mob situation. People who would not normally want to touch a knife or gun will pelt stones and throw bombs when the mass psychology takes over.

People in Aligarh have lived together Hindu and Muslim for many years Me. Samal sail. They will live together again.

By Barbara Crossette.

Article extracted from this publication >> January 25, 1991