Photos of Jinnah and Gandhi at Varsity Exhibition Cause Stir; AMU Orders Probe
New Delhi: The Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) has ordered a probe into how pictures of Pakistan founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah with Mahatma Gandhi were put on display at a photo exhibition in the varsity.
University authorities have removed the photos and a show cause notice was served to the librarian, who is the curator of the exhibition, an official said on Friday.
Also Read: Debate: Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the Lost Minority
The week-long exhibition, themed around the life and times of the Mahatma, is being held as part of the Gandhi Jayanti celebrations at AMU. The probe was ordered after BJP MP Satish Gautam on Thursday demanded the removal of some group photos in which the Mahatma is seen along with the Pakistan founder.
"The probe has been ordered as to how these pictures were included in the exhibition and a show cause notice has been served to the librarian on Thursday," AMU spokesman Shafey Qidwai said on Friday.
"University authorities certainly do not want any controversy on such a matter, keeping in mind the fact that the campus is functioning peacefully. We are only focused on our academic schedule," he said.
As The Wire has previously reported, in May, a portrait of Jinnah at the university's students' union office had caused a major row when several students were injured after armed activists from the Hindu Yuva Vahini descended on the campus with police backing to violently demand that the portrait of Jinnah – which has been hanging inside the students’ union hall since 1938, when Jinnah was awarded lifetime membership of AMUSU – be taken down. The controversy over Jinnah’s portrait was stirred up by BJP MP Satish Gautam who wrote to AMU raising objections to the portrait.
Hours before former vice-president of India, Hamid Ansari, was to visit AMU for an event, some 30 activists of the Hindu Yuva Vahini shouted slogans like ‘We will not let such respect for Jinnah pass in India”, “If you want to remain in India, you must say Vande Mataram’, “Vande Mataram, Jai Shri Ram!’
Also Read: Debate: Jinnah, Muslim Separatism and Aligarh Muslim University
Following the violence at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), internet services were suspended in the district of Aligarh on May 4 to "prevent rumour mongering" and curb "anti-social elements that could vitiate communal harmony by spreading rumours through videos, using internet services," according to an order issued by the district magistrate Chandra Bhushan Singh.
Soon after, Haryana finance minister Captain Abhimanyu demanded that the university be renamed after Mahendra Pratap Singh, who “donated land for the university for education of Hindus as well as Muslims.”
The controversy over Jinnah's portrait was seen as an attempt to rake up and consolidate Hindu voters in the region for the Kairana by-election after the BJP largely failed to deliver on its poll promise of ensuring payment to sugarcane farmers within 14 days of selling their produce. This strategy largely backfired when Rashtriya Lok Dal’s Jayant Chaudhary countered this attempt by saying: “Kairana by-election mein kya mudda chalega: Jinnah ya Ganna? (What will be the poll agenda in Kairana by-election: Jinnah or ganna?).”
Also Read: It's Time We Absolve Jinnah
More recently, the Union minister of social justice Thawar Chand Gehlot in an interview to The Wire denied the minority character of central universities like Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia on the grounds that these institutions were not established by any minority and are ‘aided’ by the Central government. Ram Shankar Katheria – the BJP MP from Agra and chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes – subsequently issued a notice to AMU to present documents in support of its minority character, so that its exemption from the constitutionally mandated reservation is accepted by the commission.
The AMU has removed two pictures, including the one in which Gandhi and Jinnah are seen along with others such as Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel.
(With inputs from PTI)
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