Vastanvi instills hope

The New Indian Express First Published : 24 Feb 2011 10:31:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 25 Feb 2011 01:07:27 AM IST
Dar-ul-Uloom Vice-Chancellor Ghulam Mohammed Vastanvi got a reprieve when the Majlis-e-Shura (governing council) of the institution rejected his offer of resignation. A final decision on his case will be taken after a three-member committee appointed by the council gives its report on the allegations against him. This and other events suggest that the propaganda that he has forfeited the support of the council and the student community is baseless. In fact, on Wednesday when the council decided his case, Vastanvi was greeted by a large number of the students of this 145-year-old seat of Islamic learning. There are reasons to believe that his appointment had upset a powerful group that had been calling the shots at the seminary. It is this group that has been campaigning against him.
Vastanvi is relatively young, holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree and has vast experience in setting up and running institutions, including engineering colleges. All this should have been seen as advantages for him in running Dar-ul-Uloom, one of the most prestigious Islamic institutions in the world. Instead, he was seen as a strong votary of modern, liberal education, as distinct from Islamic education. As a Gujarati, he knew the conditions of the Muslims in his state better than anyone else. If anyone says, for instance, that the condition of the Gujarati Muslims is much better than that of the Muslims in Left Front-ruled West Bengal, it is a statement of fact and not an endorsement of what Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi allegedly did during the weeks following the Godhra massacre.
Vastanvi cannot be faulted if he says that Muslims should not be held prisoners of the past as they have to move on in life. When Sir Syed Ahmed Khan set up Aligarh Muslim University in 1875, nine years after the Deoband seminary was established in the same state, he foresaw the need to give Muslims modern education. In the 20th century, the Muslim Education Society (MES) in Kerala took a cue from Sir Syed Ahmed and set up a string of institutions of higher learning, which played a significant role in the education of Muslims in the state. And that is precisely what Vastanvi’s organisation has been doing in Gujarat churning out doctors, teachers, engineers as well as Islamic scholars. The needs of the Muslims in the 21st century are different from those in the 19th century. The VC has the necessary credentials to bring about the much-needed reform of the Deoband seminary.