How the political and administrative nexus deprived the Urdu medium Qaumi School of the court-allotted land in Walled Delhi
By Firoz Bakht Ahmed
NEW DELHI—How humanely Leo Tolstoy quoted, “If you feel pain, you’re alive. If you feel other people’s pain, you’re a human being!” Unfortunately, this is lacking today. Though no country in the world matches the inimitable charm in all walks of life, be it the bright and brilliant democracy, the cheapest and best education, strategic manoeuvres, foreign policy, or cricket; nevertheless, life for an activist-cum-whistleblower, who calls a spade a spade, is not worthwhile and at times, those, who are honest, feel that in India, honesty is not the best but worst policy! Sad as sad can be!
The two diverse incidents in the field of education, one in higher education while the other in the school sector, prove that, of late, the whistleblowers, activists and those who call a spade a spade, hardly have any say either in governance, agencies, or the present who’s who! Truly, the way the ministries and government departments, cold-shouldered the call for action against the ones indulging in headlong corruption about educational funding misappropriation, bribery, illegal appointments, sexual harassment of girl students, shielding wrongdoers of all hues, greasing the palms of government officers and punishing the honest, bet the author down to believe that in our country, honesty is not the best but worst policy! Sad as sad can be!
I was appointed chancellor of MANUU (Maulana Azad National Urdu University), Hyderabad, by none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Immediately after joining the university, I was flooded with a flurry of complaints in all walks of the university’s life, especially about the vice-chancellor. The one, extremely heinous and horrendous was the written complaints of sexual harassment against two professors by three girl students. Being the first officer, a father figure with two daughters himself, I, with zero tolerance against such complaints, referred the complaint to the then vice-chancellor asking him to redo the ICC (Internal Complaints Committee) reports, as the victimized girls felt that the inquiry report was unjustified and he take action against the professor. The VC, rather than taking action, further glorified him and implored the sexual aggressor to file criminal and civil defamation cases against the whistleblower chancellor! The author, seeing that the functional boss of the university has been bound to set aside any efficacious advice and violate all norms and values, highlighted the horrendous incongruences, complaining to the highest authorities and highlighting in the media for which the whistleblower chancellor has been slammed with defamation!
This whistleblower cum activist also suffered another setback, that he terms as a politically organized, government daylight robbery case of the 4000 meter land allotted by Geeta Mittal, the former Delhi High Court Chief Justice to the cajoled and beleaguered Qaumi Senior Secondary School, 2400 meter land was illegally and forcibly, engulfed for a parking lot. The court had granted land to the 75-year old school after it had been razed to the ground by the Congress government during the infamous emergency on June 30, 1976. The demolishing authorities had promised that the school would be rebuilt within six months.
There can’t be another example, where the three political parties, namely the Congress, BJP and AAP gelled to snatch an Urdu medium school from the poor children of the walled city of old Delhi. While the Congress demolished it in 1976 during the infamous emergency, the BJP-supported DDA, forcibly and illegally encroached 2400 meters of the 4000 meter patch of land given to it in 2021-22, leaving just 1600 meter for building a senior secondary school, which, as per the Delhi Education Act is not possible unless there is the availability of 4000 meters. On top of that, the present AAP government, claimed that stunted patch of 1600 meters belongs to it and that it would be converted into a secondary school from senior secondary not as Qaumi School but under some other tag. Ms Rajakumari in the Department of Education under the AAP govenrment, asked the students of classes 11 and 12 to go to Fatehpuri School. At present, the school is running under tin roofs at the Eidgah ground at MM Road where the children are exposed to the extremities of weather conditions in all seasons.
In fact, after the hapless Qaumi School was dismantled, a PIL was filed by this author cum whistleblower and an activist, in 2015 in Delhi High Court, that the Shahjahanabadi old Delhi’s poor children’s erstwhile ground plus four storey and 30-room Urdu medium Qaumi Senior Secondary School had been running in the Eidgah ground for the last seven decades, had been demolished and that, by all means, it must be rebuilt.
Responding to the the PIL, the then Chief Justice, Geeta Mittal, arguing with Teebah Siddiqui, the author’s counsel, had delivered a landmark judgement on August 27, 2018 that since the school belonged to the backward Urdu medium cross section of the walled city of Delhi’s poor and backward Muslim children, a designer and state of the art school be built no sooner than later.
The DDA was asked to provide the 4000 meter land for building a senior secondary school in a nearby plot, preferably, the old butcher house.
The judgement was a glorious one but unfortunately, neither the managing committee nor the local community showed any enthusiasm about the said case that resulted in the delay for implementation of the judgement. The school was further marred owing to the filing of a pugnacious and impractical contempt application by an over enthusiastic and politically motivated person, who, accompanied by an inexperienced lawyer, misleading the petitioner, got stamped on the decision of accepting only 1600 meters of land. Unfortunately, the contempt alarmed all the concerned government officers, who all, in collusion with the MCD and Delhi government, decided to convert the land meant for senior secondary school up to class 12 into a secondary school till class 10, after Rajkumari, one senior officer of the Directorate of Education, filed a petition in Delhi High Court claiming that the said land belonged to the directorate and in place of the senior secondary school, she had planned for a secondary school while the class 11 and 12 students would be transferred to other Urdu medium schools, like Fatehpuri School. By all academic parameters and legal angles, this plan is atrociously destructive. She would also not name it as Qaumi Senior Secondary School, the original name!
The nefarious nexus of all the Delhi-based major political parties against the hapless and helpless Urdu school has resulted in the annihilation of a senior secondary school.
Strange though, all the three political parties that are mortally pitted against each other to let each one bite the dust and let down, namely, the Congress, BJP and AAP, combined and colluded perfectly amongst themselves to chart out a strategy to deprive a marred and emergency marauded Urdu medium school, its existence and name even – Qaumi Senior Secondary School! This school was built in 1948 by that section of Indian Muslims, who preferred to stay back in India, defying all the temptations of Pakistan, the so called el dorado by MA Jinnah for the religiously motivated. In 1965, it became a secondary school while in 1975, it became a senior secondary school.
Teebah is aghast at the machinations of the vicious circle of the political parties and the DDA plus MCD that the two didn’t inform petitioner (Firoz Bakht Ahmed), simply because these clandestinely and illegally tried to usurp the poor children’s land! This is like snatching or thieving criminally.
*Firoz Bakht Ahmed is the former chancellor of Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad. His views are personal.)
