You will be Missed Mushirul Hasan Sb
The passing away of Professor Mushir ul Hasan in many ways signifies the passing of an era. Academician, administrator and an active member of the civil society, he was many things rolled into one. It was because of this multi-faceted personality that his funeral was attended by people from different walks of life, writers, journalists and of course academicians from all over Delhi. Muslims, non-Muslims and atheists, all participated in his funeral prayer, something which is a rarity in these troubled times. Throughout his life, Mushir Sb. laboriously wrote about the composite religious heritage of this country. In his death, he was perhaps giving us the same message. Mushir Sb. was academically productive throughout his life. Even when he became the Vice Chancellor of Jamia University, he continued to publish books with routine regularity. While being a chronicler of partition, Mushir Sb. oeuvre included satire, fiction and contemporary political issues. His focus though remained the same throughout: to underscore that Muslims were coparcenaries in this country and that any attempt to understand them separately from the mainstream was historically incorrect. He painstakingly brought out how Muslims had fought for the independence of the country. How after partition, Muslim leaders had envisioned a life as political equals in this country. Perturbed by the right-wing shift in our political culture, he would underscore the importance of Nehruvian secularism and its relevance for our polity. He was equally concerned about the element of social and religious separatism which was creeping amongst various communities in the country and eroding the foundations of composite culture. Equally critical of Muslim fundamentalism and Hindu nationalism, Mushir Sb. never hesitated to call a spade a spade, always upholding the values of liberalism and critique which were so dear to him. It was because of his temerity to defend these values against all odds that he became a victim of the most vicious attack on his person and character when he was the pro-VC of the Jamia University. Mushir Sb. had opposed the banning of Salman Rushdie’s book the Satanic Verses because he thought that it was not the right solution. Hell broke loose on the Jamia campus after he gave that interview. Not just conservative academicians rushed to condemn him, but some Congress politicians, who have a vested interest in keeping Muslims backward, started instigating students and faculty members against Professor Hasan. Things came to such a pass that he was physically attacked inside his chamber and could escape the campus with some help but with a great amount of luck. Professor Hasan could never forget that murderous attack on him but yet he developed no antipathy for Jamia, its students and faculty members. The only lesson that he took from the episode was that Jamia was the playground of many different kind of forces, some of whom definitely wanted to treat the university as their pocket borough. This lesson would come handy for Mushir Sb. when he became the VC of Jamia. Acutely aware of the land sharks and the political interference of some families, he still managed to put Jamia onto the intellectual map of Delhi. It was under his vice chancellorship that Jamia saw unprecedented growth in terms of recruitment of faculty members and also of establishment of new centres of learning and research. He tirelessly worked for getting more funds for Jamia, not just from the government but also from willing donors abroad. The state of the art dental college, for example, was established with the support of Saudi government. Mushir Sb. was also instrumental in freeing Jamia land from land sharks which made him very unpopular with these forces. In terms of faculty