17th October is celebrated as Sir Syed Day at Aligarh and many other places all over India and the world. 17th October is the day when Sir Syed Ahmed Khan was born in Delhi in 1817. That he wanted Muslims to shift from purely religious education to english education to learn new subjects and sciences is well known. In his life time he set up schools at Moradabad and Ghazipur to impart modern education to Muslim students, a scientific society at Ghazipur and the famous Muhammadan-Anglo Oriental College at Aligarh in 1877 which later became Aligarh Muslim University in 1920 under British rule, 22 years after the death of its founder in 1898.
There is no doubt that Sir Syed Ahmed Khan achieved a lot during his life time and after his death through the institutions set up by him. He was an extraordinary visionary who understood that Muslims in India were far behind other communities in acquiring modern education and that if they don’t shift to modern education and sciences, they will not be able to compete for jobs available in the government then, and outside. Indian Muslims have come a long way since the middle of nineteenth century in terms of education but are still way behind other communities in independent India.
The Justice Rajinder Sachar committee constituted by GOI in 2005 to report on socioeconomic and educational status of Muslims submitted its report which revealed that Muslims though constituting about 14 % of population had a long way to go to catch up with other communities in terms of representation in various fields, and that one of the main reasons for their poor representation and socioeconomic condition was their comparative educational backwardness. Not much headway has been made since the publication of Sachar Committee report despite some measures undertaken since then.
It is a fact that Muslims haven’t been among top achievers in this country in proportion to their population of about 200 million or 20 crore in a population of 1400 million or 140 crore. Be it civil services, scientists, economists, Nobel prize winners, Muslims are far behind. There is none among Muslims from India to have won a Nobel prize. Pakistani scientist late Dr. Abdus Salam won the Nobel prize for physics way back in 1979 but since then none from Pakistan has won a Nobel prize, except Malala Yusufzai for peace. In fact, in terms of Nobel prize winners religious community wise worldwide, Muslims are far behind other religious communities like Christians, Jews, Hindus etc. Many more Chinese and South East Asians, Japanese, South Koreans and Russians have won Nobel prizes in comparison to Muslims from all over the world.
The best tribute Muslims of India and indeed that of the Indian subcontinent can pay to the memory of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan would be for them to go for modern school education, modernise madrasa education where sciences, mathematics, social sciences, languages etc., are taught. This is necessary for advancement of Muslims in India and to extricate them from out of the ghettos they have got used to due to exclusivity, also triggered by separate primary level religious schools.
There is also a case for reform of some personal laws which look out of sync in contemporary times, as some Muslim scholars have argued in the context of uniform civil code (UCC), while not supporting UCC for all communities in India.
Aligarh Muslim University has many achievements to its credit. It has served the Muslim community well in the field of higher education. AMU is counted among the top universities in India and can boast of having produced many graduates and post graduates who have gone on to excel in their fields and achieved eminence of highest order. However, AMU needs to address to itself two questions. Firstly, whether it has done enough for helping modernisation of madrasa education by creating many templates for madrasas to follow and secondly, whether it has adequately transformed itself into a modern world class university. Aligarh alumni is spread all over the world and know what a world class university should be like. They are also contributing to their alma mater in more ways than one including by way of monetary donations. AMU has progressed well over the years, continues to progress well but it needs to reinvent itself and dare to tread new paths to knowledge, research and delivery of highest quality of education. This would be AMU’s best tribute to its founder.
(Khurshid Ahmed Ganai is a retired IAS officer of erstwhile J&K cadre and former Advisor to the Governor)