How BJP plans to use AMU's minority status to polarise UP polls

The news trickling in is grim.

After BJP's attempts to polarise Mathura and Kairana, the party is now preparing to rake a controversy over Aligarh Muslim University's "minority character" and use it as an electoral issue in the forthcoming Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh next year.

The issue, I'm told, figured prominently during a brainstorming session of BJP MPs and MLAs in Varanasi recently. The party plans to raise the issue in a major way, in and outside Parliament, once the government's affidavit is formally submitted to the court.

The AMU minority issue is at present before a Supreme Court bench headed by the chief justice of India. During its preliminary submission, the government, via attorney general of India Mukul Rohatgi had stated that there is no constitutional provision that enables the government to run a minority educational institution.

In the government's view, since both AMU and Jamia Millia Islamia are centrally aided institutions, they cannot be termed minority institutions.

Also read: AMU’s beefy problem: How Hindutva forces raised the charade of ‘su-sanskriti’

The university was granted the status of a minority institution by a Parliament act in 1981. The AMU amendment Act accepts that Muslims had indeed set up the university. The Act was, however, struck down in 2005 by the Allahabad High Court, and thereafter the Manmohan Singh led UPA government along with AMU had challenged the high court's decision in the apex court.

The Modi government has cited several reasons for not supporting AMU's demand to be declared a minority institution.

In addition to the fact that the BJP government believes that there is no provision in the Constitution for a central government-funded institution to get a minority status, it also maintains that the demand cannot be supported since both AMU and Jamia do not offer quota to SC/ST and OBC students, which is in violation of constitutional and legal provisions.

Those in favour of continuing with the minority character status of AMU contend that Muslims indeed had set up the university, and the British government of the day had granted them the status.

Such legal luminaries include the likes of the former chief justice of the Delhi High Court, Justice Rajinder Sacher, and Ram Jethmalani, arguably one of the top legal brains in the country. They also maintain that in 1981, Parliament passed AMU amendment Act, thereby accepting that Muslims had set up the AMU.

Notwithstanding BJP government's legal arguments, the move is being viewed by many within the Muslim community as yet another attempt on the part of the government to take away from them what is rightfully theirs. What has also fuelled their fears is the timing of the demand which, they believe, has been deliberately chosen to coincide with the forthcoming state Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.

Also read: AMU V-C writes open letter on campus violence, alleges smear campaign

Throughout the 1970s and early '80s, AMU's minority status issue, along with demands of bringing in a Uniform Civil Code and doing away with Article 370, has traditionally ignited passions in the state, especially on the eve of elections.

In the past, these issues have led to communal polarisation, often followed by violent clashes. Ominously, three decades later, this issue has once again resurfaced.

The political parties and all concerned stakeholders need to learn from the past and desist from stoking communal fires. The issue needs to be debated and contested before the court, and not on the streets.