Mumtaz Alam | India Tomorrow
NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 31— Both Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia are in news these days for violence during protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and subsequent police action which left dozens of students seriously wounded. The December 15 incident reminds one of what happened about a century ago in Aligarh with some striking similarities or pieces of coincidence.
It was July 5, 1921 when violence erupted during burning of foreign clothes and Satyagraha in Aligarh in the midst of the Non-Cooperation Movement. A cop was killed. Four youths were also killed in subsequent police firing. The house of Khwaja Abdul Majeed was also torched.
“Besides people, there was anger in police. The cops were brutally beating the protesters and asking them ‘Take Swaraj’. Five people were killed in the violence. One of them was a cop,” writes Afroz Alam Sahil, young journalist and author in his recently-launched Hindi book ‘Jamia Aur Gandhi’”.
The call for boycott of foreign clothes was given by Mahatma Gandhi.
Afroz further notes that following the violence, students and teachers of the newly-born Jamia Millia Islamia, which was still in Aligarh and known as National Muslim University, were being persecuted. Many of them were arrested. Tasadduq Ahmed Khan Sherwani, who was manager of Jamia at that time, was also arrested. Jamia was born out of Anglo Oriental Mohammedan College, later known to be as Aligarh Muslim University, on October 29, 1920.
Gandhi was angry at the killing of youths in the Aligarh violence and he warned the British government that if it did not stop police brutalities, then he would sacrifice his own life.
Afroz quotes Gandhi from an article published in Navjeevan (Gujarati) on August 14, 1921. Gandhi wrote: “So far, only youths have died. All those killed in Aligarh were below 21 years age. No one knew them. Yet, if the government is hell-bent on killings then I am sure that someone from the front line would sacrifice his own life.”
Boycott of foreign clothes was part of the Non-Cooperation Movement and Satyagraha launched by Mahatma Gandhi in Aligarh in protest against the draconian Rowlatt Act.
The Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act of 1919, popularly known as the Rowlatt Act, was a legislative act passed by the British regime in Delhi on March 21, 1919, extending the emergency measures of preventive indefinite detention, incarceration without trial and judicial review. The Act was meant to curb the growing nationalist upsurge in the country.
Now back to 2019.
On December 11, the Indian Parliament passed the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) to grant Indian citizenship to migrants of only Hindu, Sikh, Christian, Buddhist, Jain and Parsi communities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
Mass protests against the CAA erupted – first in Assam and other northeast states. Some of the protests turned violent in Guwahati and around five people were killed in police firing there.
The protests spread in other parts of the country and a large number of people including Muslims in big numbers hit the streets opposing the law and the central government’s move to conduct nationwide updation of NRC (National Register of Citizens).
Around noon on December 15, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while addressing an election rally in Dumka district of Jharkhand, claimed that those who are protesting against CAA can be identified by their clothes. “Congress and their allies are creating a ruckus…They are doing arson because they did not get their way. Those who are creating violence can be identified by their clothes itself,” PM was quoted as saying by ANI news agency.
A protest against CAA at AMU in Dec. 2019
A few hours later on the same day, violence erupted during protests by students of Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi and Aligarh Muslim University in Aligarh. In retaliation, police barged into the campuses of Jamia and AMU and resorted to lathi-charge and teargas firing. Several dozen students of the two central universities were wounded – many of the students got their hands or legs broken, many others got injuries on heads. One student of Jamia who was studying in the library was hit in the eye and he lost vision in his left eye. Two students of Jamia got gunshot wounds but they survived as they were rushed to the hospital immediately. In Aligarh, 1,000 students of AMU were booked for the December 15 incident.
Some protests against CAA turned violent in Lucknow, Kanpur, Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Firozabad and other districts also. At least 20 people were killed – some of them in police firing. Besides, hundreds of people were arrested and several thousand booked in unnamed FIRs. Around 400 people were served recovery notices to pay for the damages of public properties during the protests.
A protest against CAA at Jamia Millia Islamia in Dec. 2019
What Would Gandhi Do If He Were Around Today?
After police firing and crackdown in Aligarh in 1921, Mahatma Gandhi had warned the British government that if it did not stop police brutalities, then he would sacrifice his own life.
Last week (on Dec. 21), scores of people including youths and some eminent faces from civil society gathered at Raj Ghat, the mausoleum of Mahatma Gandhi in Delhi, and held a silent protest demonstration against CAA-NRC.
A CAA protester holding a portrait of Mahatma Gandhi in Delhi in Dec 2019.
Talking to India Tomorrow at Raj Ghat, Dalit leader Ashok Bharatiya had said: “Through CAA and NRC, the government and ruling party is unleashing attack on the values of the Constitution and freedom struggle…If Gandhi were around today, he would stand with us with his lathi.”
It seemed these people were looking for a Gandhi.
