Sometimes
I wonder, what kind of a country India really is? On one hand, we are
proudly told by K. Radhakrishnan, chief of India's space research
organization, that in the recent trail blazer space mission to Mars,
woman power has been at the core, with women heading labs and
running mission control centres to transporting space launch
vehicles. Giving details, he added;
“We
have over 20 percent women on our rolls…some are heads of
laboratories, some are deputy directors of major centres like the
Vikram Sarabhai space centre. If you look at our mission control
centres…you will see them working day and night.”
Coming
from a family that was at forefront in the social revolution for
education of women, that took place in Maharashtra state of India in
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and also growing up
in a family that fully believed in equitable education for girls and
boys, I am sure pleased to read this bit of news.
Yetl,
on the other hand, my heart saddens much to read that in this very
same country, Vice Chancellor of an old and prestigious university,
that has been in existence for more than ninety years, comes up with
a public statement, saying that Girl students in this University can
not use the University's main library, which only boys can use. This
raises the question in my mind as to what kind of country are we
really living here?
Aligarh
Muslim University (made a full fledged university in 1920) is a
public university, funded by the federal government of India and is
among the oldest federal universities in India. The main campus of
AMU is located in the city of Aligarh. Spread over 467.6 hectares and
offers more than 300 courses in the traditional and modern branches
of education. The University has consistently ranked among the best
educational institutions in India. The university is open to all,
even though being named as a Muslim University irrespective of caste,
creed, religion or gender.
The
Woman’s College was established in 1906 and was later affiliated
with the university. It is dedicated to the cause of female education
in India. Maulana Azad Library is the central library of the Aligarh
Muslim University and has an invaluable collections of manuscripts
and rare books available in oriental languages. The Oriental
Division of Maulana Azad Library has about two hundred thousand
printed books & periodicals including 10,000 documents belonging
to rare category in Urdu/Persian/ Arabic/Hindi & Sanskrit. The
Library also holds an invaluable collection of 15,162 rare
manuscripts.. Several royal decrees of Mughal Emperors namely Babur,
Akbar, Shahjahan, Aurangzeb, Shah Alam etc. and also translations of
Sanskrit works such as Bhagwad Geeta, Mahabharata and Leelawati in
Persian by Abul Faiz Faizi, a scholar in the court of Moghal Emperor
Akbar, are some of the highlights of the manuscripts collection of
this Library.
I have
given above details just to emphasize the significance of this
library to almost any student or research scholar studying or doing
research in the university. Yet, a most retrograde and gender biased
policy based on moribund logic, the university does not allow girl
students of the Woman's college, to enter the library premises. Very
rightly, Woman's College student's Union, has been pressing for its
demand, that girls may be allowed to use the central library and say;
"We
are students of Aligarh Muslim University. We, too, should have the
benefit of accessing the famous Maulana Azad Library. The library in
the Women's College is not enough.”
Responding
on one such demand made recently, vice-chancellor of the university
Lt Gen Zameer Uddin Shah, turned down the demand giving some
ridiculous and flimsy reasons. It only showed that the cobwebs of the
age old male chauvinism, are still thickly set in the minds of the
university management. The laughable reasons given by him to turn
down the request was that there would be "four times more boys"
in the library if girls were allowed in. Women's College principal,
echoing the VC's views comes up with even more ridiculous reasoning.
She says that if girls are allowed in the library, the discipline
issue might crop up.
After
VC's comments were made public by the media, naturally there were
strong reactions coming from every liberal minded person. Defending
his decision, VC came up with even more weird statement in which he
said "If girls are
allowed in the library, more boys will flock to the library. This is
not an issue of discipline but of space, Central library does not
have enough space.”
Human
resources ministry of the federal Government, reacted with a guarded
statement that Education and Constitution is about equal rights. Such
news from a temple of education is an insult of children.
Readers
would be able to appreciate how ridiculous the situation really is.
How can the university make a differentiation for facilities offered
to students based on their gender? The discipline issue has to be
tackled by the library management and biasing against a gender is not
a way out. It is also their responsibility to look after the safety
and protection of women by devising other ways and means. Over
crowding of the library can be easily controlled by allowing a fixed
number of students (both male and female) inside at any given time.
To my mind, VC's statement is perhaps is in the same line of logic
for the the argument that women should not wear 'provocative'
clothes, if they do not want to be mistreated.
Amongst
the ruckus generated over media, a Public interest litigation was
promptly filed in Allahabad High Court against AMU vice-chancellor
Lt Gen Zameeruddin Shah saying that he was adopting a
"discriminatory" attitude towards girl students by refusing
to allow their entry into the library. The court has expressed
displeasure over the fact that undergraduate girls are being denied
access to the library and said it was the duty of the varsity
administration to allow their entry and fix whatever problems come in
the way of doing so. Court has issued a notice to the VC and has
sought a reply before November 24th.
Like
in many other instances, the court intervention may turn out to be
the quickest solution to this retrograde and gender biased policy of
the university. The federal Government may find it difficult to
intervene because of many legal and other issues. AMU must get out of
this Moribund logic of medieval times.
17th
November 2014
Quite informative post. The place looks awesome in the picture.
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