My Jamia

  These days I have been asking a question to many of my colleagues. ‘Who is the owner of Jamia?’ I had many prompt answers. Most of them told it was the VC. Many thought it was the administration, or the government, or the UGC, or the teachers etc. But none of them said what I wanted to listen.
In my six years of stay in Jamia I am yet to find a day when anybody near me has not abused or cursed the Jamia administration. Be it their teachers, or the office clerks, or the canteen persons, the Proctor, the Provost. They can’t be blamed as well. I myself have been in their shoes many a times. Once I went to the VC office to complain about the school clerk, and I found the person (who was to listen to my problem) watching **** on internet. Many a times I see, the clerk in our faculty dean’s office prefers playing the ‘arrows and balloons’ game in his computer, rather than listening to us. People have developed the habit of taking rest before they get tired. These things do frustrate me or anybody else. Jamia does have these problems. But where they are not? Once Firoz Bakht commented on Jamia, that went something like this. “Jamia neither has got the intellect of JNU nor the charm of DU.” Jamia was once put in the 93^rd rank among the top hundred universities of India. On being enquired about the basis, they told us, ‘Infrastructure’. Well these people are not wrong either.
Problems are indeed there. And I am sure we are aware of them. And I am equally sure that the associated people are working for it. But I try to look at this in a different way. What I perceive is a bigger problem in Jamia is the lack of possessiveness on part of the students. I sensed a lack of responsibility on their part. As it is evident from the answers I got from them in para1, none of them really believe it’s their own university. Some students started bunking the training sessions in their company. The only thing the company remembered after that was that the students were from Jamia. Breaking glasses, windowpanes, furniture, street light etc were never new to us. Someone carrying a ‘kurkure’ wrapper to dump it in a proper place will be a laughing stock. Not only that. Someone dressed in formals with tie is an even better joke. And speaking in English fluently along with that is pure show off. When I was in Jamia School, nobody knew who the current topper of the class was, but everybody knew which boy had a fight with the teacher. Some students who unfortunately happened to be from Jamia returned from jail (for some violence) and they were interviewed like celebrities. Hitting a teacher is considered gutsy. Shame on us. And believe me friends these things too are responsible for Jamia’s lagging behind other universities. Our individual activities represent the face of a mass called Jamiaites.
Infrastructure is not the only thing which makes a good university. What actually make a good university are its students. We reflect the image of our university. Only we can make it the best. Not the authorities, not the teachers, not the clerks and neither the VC, Provost, Proctor, nobody. No rule can raise the intellect level of the students. No rule can make us successful until we ourselves work hard. No rule can keep the campus clean until we cooperate.
It is much our responsibility to work for the betterment of this university than theirs whom we usually blame. And it is us who are going to suffer if any of our acts defame the institution. Remember when you sing ‘dayar-e-shauq mera’ it also means it’s our university. We do sing it but we never mean it.
A change is indispensable. Let us be a part of the change. Change of the face of Jamia. And come on; let’s decorate it too like a bride. So that when someone asks what does JMI stands for? You have an alternative answer: Just My Institution. Gird up your loins. We have miles to go before we tire. All the best.