Every student, irrespective of gender, should have access to the resources provided by the University, and Aligarh Muslim University cannot be an exception. The issue that flared up during the last few weeks in AMU is the fact that the female students of Abdullah College don’t have access to the biggest library of the institution, which was founded on the principle that the underprivileged and downtrodden sections of society can have easy access to education, and in today’s India, women are very much part of this underprivileged section. However, this denial of access to library is not a black and white scenario; there are other nuisances, cultural and social, involved.
Abdullah Girls College, the all-female college, is the only option for a lot of girls, whose parents would otherwise not allow them to attend the college, due to our traditional values. These parents would prefer their girls stay at home if the gates are opened to outside world, and in this case we are talking about the library.
To allow the girls of Abdullah Girls College to use the Maulana Azad Library is an indirect permission for them to go out of the campus of the college, and that could become a reason for some of them to drop out. In an attempt to even it up, there is a risk that some might lose their right to education, even if that number might be too small.
The University has attracted some sections of our society, making a slow and gradual empowerment of women from these sections. These parents send their daughters to Abdullah Girls College only because they think their daughters remain inside the boundaries of the college and are safe there. However, opening up the gates might change their mind backwards.
The debate should have been shifted to provide a better library for the girls in their college to begin with, or set up library hours if they are given access to Maulana Azad Library. Making this a gender issue seems to be more of an exaggeration, to be precise, factually incorrect. There is no ban on female students to work or get books issued from Maulana Azad Library. At masters and research level, the university is co-ed and everyone has equal access to the resources provided by the University. Therefore, the media hysteria over this issue is clearly misinformation and factually incorrect. All it seems is that this country’s media has an obsession to portray Muslims as backward lunatics. Now that Love Jihad has faded out, AMU is their muse. Otherwise, the students of Abdullah College have been fighting for access to the main library for years, why has media suddenly become interested now?
[The writer is Research Scholar, Department of Political Science, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh]