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| AMU Students' Union Hall |
Dear friends, as the AMUSU election has been officially notified by the university authorities, we ought to take part in the electoral process, in a very active way. Although many of us have already been participating in the process but still many of us will be reluctant about it. It is indeed a moment of joy and pride, that we are given another chance to exercise our democratic right, to choose our representatives for the session 2016-17. These representatives, my friends, do not represent us for just a few months [one session] but they are going to represent our community for decades. Thus we ought to choose them with extreme care and thoughtfulness.
Having said that, let me remind you that AMU is going through turmoil for quite some time after the inception of NDA government at the centre. You must be knowing that, how AMU has been falsely attacked time and again by the fascist forces- sometimes in the name of “birthdays” and sometimes in the name of “entrance of girl-students in MA library” and so on. There are vultures outside who are trying hard to undo ‘Aligarh movement’ and the efforts of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan [the founder of AMU] in establishing this university . This is being done primarily with the attempts at snatching away of the minority character of the institution. We all know that AMU is a ray of hope for all those Indian Muslims who are educationally [socially and economically] more backward than SCs and STs of India. Snatching away of the minority status of the university would mean pushing the Indian Muslims centuries back.
This student union is not only about the food, accommodation of students, arrival of a new vice-chancellor and the administrative high-handedness, but about the bare existence of AMU. So while exercising our democratic right, we must think about these issues [and many others] and then only vote for a candidate, who has the best practicable solutions to all these problems.
Let the candidates not rant with the traditional rhetoric of “bringing back minority character” with some magical stick, this time. Ask them their strategy and analyse its practicability. Ask them what will they do when the matter is in court and what are their plans if the judgement goes against us. Do this for all the issues they will talk about. Inspect their candidature, watch them, their campaigning and tactics carefully. Think, analyse and criticise them before voting. Look at their academic records, innovation in their ideas, and their teams too, before voting them to power.
Remember, we must vote for a “candidate” and not “a geographical location” or “a region”. We ought to choose our representatives, on the basis of above mentioned qualities [and others] alone. Last but not the least, let no one else decide for your “vote”.
About the Author: Mujahid Mughal has been a Basic Scientific Research fellow at AMU. He is working as an Assistant Professor in Govt Degree College Poonch. The article was written by him when he was working as a regular fellow at AMU in, 2016-2017.
Disclaimer: The views of the author are strictly personal and do not in anyway represent the views of the Pir Panjal Post