Poverty is no excuse for allowing your kids to drop out or, worse, to go illiterate. If you are diabetic or are suffering from blood pressure, it is most likely that your children will inherit the disease. But if you happen to be poor, it is most likely that your kids will lead a happy and successful life provided you just take the initiative to fulfil your obligation of educating them. This was the concluding remark made by Dr. A.R. Nakadar, Founder of American Federation of Muslims of Indian Origin (AFMI) USA & Canada in the two-day Educational Conference and Gala Award ceremony that concluded in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, on January 3.
The idea was corroborated when a local Muslim mechanic, Mr. Maqsood, who had studied up to Std. X and whose wife is just literate with education up to Std. VI, shared with the audience how they could make their daughter complete the medical course and their son pursue higher education.
Earlier, in the inaugural session, which commenced with the recitation of the first five verses of Surah al-Qalam of the Qur’ān emphasising how the very first verse revealed to Prophet Muhammad (may Allah bless and greet him) enjoins people ‘to read’, president AFMI Dr. Iqbal Ahmed read the pulse of the community when he said, “There is lack of motivation for education among Muslims in India.”
Knocking at the conscience of the community, Dr. Ahmed underlined the need to improve the quality and standard of education at the school level. “Knowledge is the lost property of Muslims; grab it wherever you get it.”
Dr. Ahmed, who hails from Malegaon, Punjab, also called upon the well-off persons of the community to come forward to open schools wherever required. “The least you can do is to sponsor a child for education.”
Dr. Nakadar, a cardiologist who rose to great heights of service to humanity and was on the medical advisers’ team of then US President Ronald Reagan, is the moving spirit behind AFMI. He called upon the community to make sincere efforts to contain drop-out, find out excellence in students, and provide due, proper guidance / counselling for them. “If we do so, we will make the community rise from the ashes,” he said with a ring of confidence and determination in his tone while addressing the inaugural session.
Addressing directly to students, he said, “Each barrier is not hindrance to you; it will grow you more. Quality education is way to Muslim salvation. Without education, we are like slaves; we are not free. So strive for getting higher and quality education.”
Dr. Nakadar reminded the community of the two-fold responsibility – one, to God and the other to fellow human beings. He wanted the members of the community to see to it that all members of their families are educated and then those living in their neighbourhood are not deprived of the wealth of education.
With a heart full of bubbling emotions of community concern, Dr. Nakadar also reminded the community of the need to stick to the issues confronting the community and to shun the non-issues. Our issues are educational backwardness, unemployment, poverty and socio-political backwardness. And our non-issues include singing of vande mataram and indulging in futile discussions like whether India is darul harb or darul amn.
“You cannot compare one’s religion with one’s nationality,” he averred. And to make his point home, he recalled the first round table conference during which Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru put a very ticklish question before Maulana Abul Kalam Azad when the latter was asked whether he was Indian first or Muslim first, and the Maulana retorted: If it is India, I am Indian first; and if it is religion, I am Muslim first.
Speaking as Chief Guest, Justice (retd.) M.S.A. Siddiqui, Chairperson National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions, underscored the fact that lack of education is the only cause for Muslims’ backwardness.
Attempting to overcome this malaise, he suggested to the community leadership as well as concerned authorities to consider how we can improve accessibility, equity and quality of education. He also suggested to them to make teaching a high grade profession.
“Our society is at present knowledge-absorbing; we have to make it knowledge-generating,” he asserted.
He also advised the audience to make children know the art of skill transfer. “We used to choose career for life, but now we have to choose life for career.”
Like Dr. Nakadar, Justice Siddiqui also rejected the idea of shunning education due to poverty. Citing the classic cases of Lal Bahadur Shastri and Abraham Lincoln, he said, “Seeking knowledge is an obligation from cradle to grave.”
He further said, “If you have to lead a life of dignity and come up to the level of the majority community, you will have to make ‘double labour’.
Recalling the pre-partition days, he lamented, “We should have opposed the English but not English.”
He wanted to impress upon the audience that one of the prime reasons of drop-out cases is our children’s lack of knowledge of English.
Those who graced the inaugural session included Ashwin Joshi, MLA Indore and Krishan Murari Moghe, newly elected Mayor of Indore Municipal Corporation.
Hoping that the conference would prove a milestone on the path of educational advancement of Muslims, Joshi lamented, “There is only one religion that has declared education as obligatory and it is the followers of this religion about whose educational backwardness grave concern is expressed.”
The inaugural session witnessed Sir Syed Ahmed Khan Award 2009 conferred on Mubarak Kapdi of National Educational Movement, Mumbai for his relentless efforts for educational advancement of Indian Muslims. Last year this award was given to MESCO of Hyderabad.
After receiving the award, Mr. Kapdi made a brief address telling the audience how he is visiting even interior areas in the nook and corner of India to create awareness for education among Muslims. He expressed his happiness that his efforts have resulted in containing the drop-out rate to some extent. He also highlighted the need of utilising Friday sermons and Zakat fund for the educational advancement of Muslims.
Extending his vote of thanks at the end of the inaugural session, Dr. Aslam Abdullah, Trustee of AFMI, said, “We cannot hold other people for our poverty, educational backwardness and other issues.”
Union Minister for Minority Affairs Salman Khursheed highlighted the efforts being made by his ministry as well as HRD Ministry for the advancement of Muslims in India. He also informed the audience that Equal Opportunity Commission is being seriously considered.
On a question on non-implementation of Central schemes for minorities in Gujarat, he assured the audience that he would talk to the Prime Minister in this regard.
Mr. N. Jamal Ansari of Aligarh Muslim University asked the organisers of the conference to adopt a resolution urging the Government to declare both AMU and Jamia Millia Islamia as minority institutions.
Professor A.A. Abbasi, former Vice Chancellor of Devi Ahilya University, Indore underlined the need of paying more attention to students living in villages as educational awareness in towns and cities is easily available.
Other dignitaries who addressed the conference include Jitu Patwari, president Youth Congress, Madhya Pradesh; Omar Farooq, chairperson M.P. Minority Commission; Justice A.G. Quraishi; Dr. Shabista Ghafara, chairperson National Commission for Minority Education’s committee on Girl Child; besides AFMI members Dr. Syed Ashraf, Dr. Shahida Akhtar, Shaikh Tayyab Poonawala, Dr Husain Khan, Dr. Razia Ahmed, Dr. Ali Quraishi and others.
An entire session was devoted to listen to the students who had been awarded by AFMI during the last 10 years. Nine such students participated in the session. In this session the audience witnessed some moving moments when one former AFMI medallist narrated how her higher education was going to be hampered, and again when another medallist appealed to parents, particularly fathers, to give equal treatment to daughters and take care of their education.
As this Educational Conference included award ceremony, about 100 brilliant Muslim students scoring high marks in SSC and HSC examinations 2009 from 20 States were awarded gold, silver and bronze medals in different sessions.
Three of the top five students who scored more than 95% marks in SSC examinations were awarded gold medals and certificate in the very inaugural session. They are Ayesha Haroon Rashid (99.99%) from Parbhani, Maharashtra; Sarwar Hasib (97.14%) from Cuttack, Orissa; and Saleha Iqbal Hussain (96.4%) from Udaipur, Rajasthan.
Top five students who scored more than 95% marks in HSC examinations 2009 were awarded gold medals at the hands of Mr. Salman Khursheed on the second day of the conference.
Other awards were given in the second session of the first day itself.
All this AFMI did in this conference and award ceremony and has been doing this for the last 18 years went a long way to recognise the talents of some of the Muslim toppers who scored high marks. The decision of award is of course made by fixing cut marks like gold medals for those scoring 95% or more. But what about those who could not qualify even the cut marks for bronze medals; they also deserve some appreciation if not medals.
Another important point is that only distribution of awards would not do something concrete as some of the recipients might stand in need of sustained support; scholarships might be granted to them.
Yet another point is that announcement of the awards should be given wide publicity in daily newspapers, as it is apprehended that some more Muslim students scoring high marks might have missed the award due to lack of information and/or communication.