Ghulam Nabi Azad & JNMC, AMU

Jawahar Lal Nehru Medical College, Aligarh Muslim University which is one of country’s prestigious institutions of its kind is passing through a very critical stage primarily because of pancity of funds.
A former senior functionary of the medical college, who preferred to remain anonymous told this writer, “Badly needed funds for life saving equipment and drugs are being denied to this hospital which caters to the medical needs of half a dozen districts in western U.P”.
This official who retired from a top post of this institution recently, said, “the reluctance of the top varsity officer to approach the Union Health Minister because of personal differences is adding to the misery of nearly four lac patients who visit the hospital annually”. These “differences” between university administration of the Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad follows the issue of sicth the vige next canceled hospitals. All other hospitals in a similar category are also supported by their respective state government for such grants.
In his visit to the Jawaharlal medical college more than six months ago, Mr. Ghulam Nabi announced an increase in annual budgetary provision for the hospital. The minister had during this visit publicly criticized what he described as the “appalling conditions” prevailing in the medical college hospital at the time of his surprise check. Since then the medical college authorities have introduced several steps for improving the functioning of the hospital but, health services continue to be in a “pathetic condition” AMU officials privately concede.
Another common complaint in the public is that patients for whom primarily the medical college hospital is supposed to cater are being refused admission and are being directed to neck treatment at private nursing homes This has been a common practice since a long time but in recent years this and practice has spread unchecked and doctors at the medical college are having no hesitation what so ever in refreshing treatments to such poor patients. The university authorities are turning a blind eye to this illegal activity.

Najeeb Jung article : 'Why don’t Muslims speak out against crimes by Muslims ?

A bunch of terrorists blew themselves up in the holy precincts of Data Darbar, the shrine of Hazrat Ali Hujveri, pop­ularly known as Data Ganj ­Bakhsh, the patron saint of Lahore. It was an attempt to strike at the heart of sec­ular Islam and a wake-up call for the multitudes of voiceless that feel concern at the growing menace of fundamentalism, and yet do not to act. This attack on the shrine, a successor of the earlier attack on the Hazrat Bal Mosque in Kashmir and the capture of the Lal Masjid in Islamabad a couple of years ago, is indicative of the vast gap that has developed among the followers of Islam. Hardcore fundamentalists, with scant respect to life or religion, consider themselves to have the licence to kill and destroy anyone or anything that does not subscribe to their ideology. The rest of the community watches in despair, hoping for govern­ment to succeed.
Consider for a moment this attack of 2 July at Data’s shrine. Ali Hujveri, who ar­rived in Lahore in 1077, was one of the earliest of the Sufis who came to India from Cen­tral Asia, bringing a message of love, piety and altruistic Islam. They were the true believers of the magic verses of the Quran that com­mences with the verse, "Bis­millah ar Rahman ar Rahim” - in the name of Allah the most merciful, the most beneficent. Note the empha­sis on the words stressing the mercy and beneficence of Allah. Ali Hujveri achieved a high status in su­fidom and his work, the Kashful Mahjub (Unveiling the Veiled) is a seminal work on Sufism. It is believed that Moinuddin Chisti meditated at his shrine for many weeks before receiving divine in­spiration to commence work at Ajmer. About All Hujveri he says: "Ganj Bakhsh-e-­faiz-e Alam, mazhar-e-Nur-I Khuda/ Naqisaan ra pir-e Kamil, Kaamilaan ra rahnuma (Ganj Bakhsh is a manifestation of the Light of God for the people/A perfect guide unto the imperfect ones and a guide unto the perfect ones)”.
Who on earth would bomb such a shrine where thousands pay obeisance every day believing that their muraad will be fulfilled? A visit to the dargahs of Nizamuddin Auliya, Qutab Sahib, or Moinuddin Chisti will reveal the extent of reverence men and women of all religions have for these sufis. Obvi­ously, these perpetrators are the same zealots who believe in stoning people to death, chopping off hands when men and women are con­victed of theft by kangaroo courts that have no legal sanction in this day and age~ the same who murder jour­nalists, the same who killed a Christian policeman, with his wife and four children, when he refused to move out of a predominantly Mus­lim area in Jhelum. They de­mand a ban on the magical collection of tales in the Ara­bian Nights, and stone a hu­man to death, waiting to see death in a most horrible and slow way. They are the same who made slaves of women in Afghanistan in the name of religion, locking them in darkness of mind and body, hitherto unknown in the lov­ing, all encompassing mes­sage of Allah and his Prophet (peace be upon him). They are the same who place bombs in the streets and cities of India, knowing full well of the potential damage to human life irrespective of caste and religion. These are the same who lay siege to a Lal Masjid, or bomb the Hazrat Bal mosque.
It is obvious that they pose a unique challenge to the large majority of the silent Muslims who are left to de­fend the defenceless. How many times will the remain­ing lot of Muslims continue explaining that these are not the tenets of their religion? How many times will ap­propriate references from the Holy Quran be pulled out to point out that Islam is indeed a religion of uni­versal love and peace and repeatedly the Prophet (peace be upon him) himself and subsequently the four Caliphs immediately follow­ing him were repositories not just of Islamic theology but practitioners of truth, justice and secular belief. The Prophet is known to have said that he smells the winds of love and knowledge from across the Arabian Sea (a reference to the East), ex­horted the believers to travel as far as China to gain knowledge, gave adequate freedom to women (his wife Khadija was a business-woman of substance, and in later years Aysha was frequently consulted when the Hadith was being compiled). For those who feel that women have a less than equal role in Islamic society, I refer them to the last sermon of the Prophet, delivered a short time before he passed away, wherein he devotes half of it to the responsibility of man towards woman and his duty to take care of her with equal right and respect.
This space is not in­tended to be used as another attempt to defend Muslims or Islam. It is intended as a warning for all right-thinking Muslims to speak now. It is already nine years when AI Qaeda attacked the twin towers, bringing forth knowledge of an issue that had existed for a while, but not enough at­tention was given to it. The emergence of the Talibs, the shelter to Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, the system­atic terror attacks not just in Pakistan and Kashmir, but Spain, the UK and else­where in the world have made us all sit up and notice the seriousness of a new phe­nomenon that is impacting the planet, and exposing clear fault lines between Muslims. The truth is that the jihadi element is but a minuscule of the Muslim population. But lack of ar­ticulation of this fact by the Muslim intellectuals, their lack of ability to boldly speak out against reactionary elements, the lack of protest against unacceptable fatwas, the lack of cogent writing on these issues, in fact, overall lack of protest by the bulk of Muslims, their quiet acceptance of what is happening continues to damage Islam and Muslims. On the other hand, the hardliners manage websites, organize symposia and manage to proselytize and get across their point of view more effectively. We now have Muslims and their leaders demanding various affirmative actions from the Government. It is time that they also spoke out against obscuran­tism and backwardness, against lack of education, and in favour of greater re­spect to their women, and above all against the reac­tionary elements in their community.
Till such time, do they have the right to take up cudgels against other forms of com­munalism? At a time when there is clear involvement of groups of Hindus in terror attacks, the failure of Mus­lim intellectuals, writers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, et al. to come out stridently in criticism towards their own ilk will shackle their ability to frankly engage civic society in open dia­logue to combat the monster of terror.

(Najeeb Jung is a formaer civil servent and currently The Vice Chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia)