Reading Soroor Ahmed’s “Later Muslims Ignored Social Sciences, Not Science” (Radiance, 17 – 23 June), I agree when the writer says, “In the subcontinent, many of us keep parroting the theory propagated by Sir Syed that we lost because among other things, we ignored science.”
Although Aligarh is my alma mater (1957-1962) I have held the view for the last several years that we North Indians suffer from a ‘Sir Syed Syndrome’. Under its influence, we consider ‘education’ to always mean ‘higher education’. We forget that we thus ignore the needs and the plight of almost 90% of our children – 70% of whom drop out of school by Std. 7th and another 20% by Std. 9th ostensibly due to the extreme poverty of their parents, thus swelling the ranks of the next generation poor who are barely employable.
I wish that after analysing the past so well, he would dip his pen in the ‘ink of the present’ and write about how the Indian Muslim community could transform itself into the promoter and establisher of righteousness and justice through the application of the secular principles of Islam in the service of all, but particularly the poor and the wretched of this beloved country of ours – with the strong participation and support, of course, of constructive non Muslims.
Chaudhari Fariduddin
Safat, Kuwait
Write in ’Ink of the Present’ Too
Reading Soroor Ahmed’s “Later Muslims Ignored Social Sciences, Not Science” (Radiance, 17 – 23 June), I agree when the writer says, “In the subcontinent, many of us keep parroting the theory propagated by Sir Syed that we lost because among other things, we ignored science.”
