At the behest of the HRD Ministry to probe complaints against 10 central universities, University Grants Commission (UGC) on April 25, had set up five committees to look into the issue. The UGC now have come up with some suggestions that the words ‘Muslim’ and ‘Hindu’ be dropped from the names of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) and Banaras Hindu University (BHU), respectively.
According to a report Indian Express, the audit was made by a committee comprising IIT-Madras professor Shripad Karmalkar, Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati University V-C Kailash Sodani, Guwahati University professor Mazhar Asif and IIM-Bangalore professor Sankarshan Basu inspected the AMU before preparing the audit report.
The committee has suggested that the AMU be either called just ‘Aligarh University’ or be named after its founder, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. On the same lines, the committee has also asked BHU to amend its name. According to committee, as the AMU is centrally funded university it is a secular institution and hence, the word ‘Muslim’ should be removed.
The committee has also described AMU as “feudal” in nature and called for measures to uplift poor Muslims on campus. The report, however, refrained from commenting on the institutions’ minority status as the matter is sub-judice, reported Indian Express. The UGC panel also questioned the selection process of AMU’s vice-chancellor. The panel also suggested that the selection process should be tweaked to align it with the appointment procedure followed by the central universities.
The panel also questioned why the majority of faculty appointments are of its former students. The panel has recommended that there should be five-year gap for all ex-students before they can be recruited as teachers in AMU. The panel also suggested to increase the university’s tuition fee to help raise more resources internally and wants the reduction in the alumni on different AMU bodies.
