Daneesh Majid
Hyderabad: “Bana hai Shah ka musaahib phire hai itraata, vagarna shehar mein Ghalib ki aabru kya hai (Having become the King’s companion he shows of arrogantly/Otherwise what other claim to respect does Ghalib have).”
Current Maulana Azad Urdu University Student Union President who is an MA-English student Umar Faruq Quadri recited this couplet when asked about Firoz Ahmed Bakht’s letter titled “CAA and NRC aren’t against Muslims.”
Subsequent to a press briefing on campus yesterday, he received word about a letter authored by Firoz Ahmed Bakht. This letter explicitly accuses “vested interests” destroying the peaceful and harmonious abric of India by denouncing the CAA-NRC initiatives. Students of India’s only Urdu university, were the first in Hyderabad to condemn the police brutality against Jamia Milia Islamia on the same night of that incident. Yet, its chancellor has implored his “Dear Muslims.” He has addressed the students of the university on their letterhead. He said: “I appeal to you all not to get into the clutches of these politicians who want to break India. Kindly avoid coming onto the roads and strengthen the hands of your Prime Minister Modi, who I vouch, is your well-wisher…”
To confirm the veracity of this letter, Quadri made a phone call to Bakht. “Our Chancellor has a history of taking statements out of context to present false narratives, So I recorded the whole phone call and then asked MANUU PhD Scholar Asad Qazi to upload the recording onto YouTube,” he said.
The video is going viral since it has been uploaded. In the video appended below, Bakht accepts that he wrote the letter. Quadri also criticized Bakht’s inability to extend some verbal support to his students and comprehend how unconstitutional the CAA-NRC is.
Be it the video or their continuous protests for the past 12 days, teachers, faculty, and other University well-wishers have been steadfast in their support for the MANUU student body. “He is entitled to make a written personal statement without using the university’s letterhead, but speaking on behalf of an institution whose student body is protesting that which he ‘personally’ seems to support is problematic,“ deplores the MANUU-SU President.
Like many other student leaders around the country, Quadri believes that Bakht should return to the side of the anti-CAA-NRC protestors before it is too late.