Irfan Habib: People like Kanhaiya, Umar and Shehla are role models for youth and elders both

Naved Ashrafi | @NavedAshrafi | February 28, 2017

Teachers and students at Aligarh Muslim University organised an open lecture followed by a solidarity march. A number of students and teachers including Prof. Irfan Habib were a part of the event. 
Students and teachers of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) today came out in solidarity with the students and teachers of University of Delhi in the backdrop of recent incident of disruption and hooliganism by a right wing students’ body in Ramjas College. In an open lecture at Faculty of Arts lawn followed by a peaceful march, number of students and teachers gathered and upheld the need for a strong rebuttal of fascist ideology that endangers university campuses in India.
Picture Credits: Facebook
Prof. Irfan Habib, eminent Marxist historian and emeritus professor at the Centre of Advanced Studies, Department of History (AMU) said that whenever fascist forces come to the power, they don’t smash the social, political and economic institutions all of a sudden. They do it all in ‘stages’ and first of all stages is ‘curbing the free voices and expressions’. Prof. Habib emphasised, ‘what Hitler and Mussolini did is a testimony to this fact’. At the gathering Prof. Habib was flanked by other faculty members of AMU including Prof. Wasi Haider, Prof. Ali Nadeem Rezavi, Prof. Md. Aftab Alam, AMUTA secretary Prof. Mustafa Zaidi and others.

Picture Credit: Mohammad Rafey Qadri
He said, ‘students are the saviour of university campuses against the fascist threat and people like Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and Shehla Rashid are the role models not only for students but also for elders like me’. ‘Battle against fascist forces starts from ‘awareness’ and ‘alertness’ about their motives, he added urging students to make  masses aware at large about moves like demonetisation, and cooperating corporate houses.
Picture Credit: Mohammad Rafey Qadri
Prof. Md. Aftab Alam from Department of Political Science asked students to register strong protest against such attacks on freedom of expression as that happened in Ramjas College and urged students not to take the law in their hands during such protests. He indicated that influence of fascist forces was quiet palpable even in AMU as it became quite toilsome to get permission from AMU administration even for a ‘peaceful’ protest.  He said, ‘protest must be registered in constitutional ways and we must believe in might of democratic institutions of free India’. AMUTA Secretary Prof. Mustafa Zaidi also endorsed students to revitalise campuses with democratism and humanism.Watch here:

Published on
28/02/2017 17:34India Standard Time
Naved Ashrafi

Naved Ashrafi

Naved Ashrafi earned his Botany Honors and was awarded Gold Medal in Masters in Public Administration at the Aligarh Muslim University. He is doctoral fellow in Public Administration at the Department of Political Science, AMU.

  • Heraclitus kapila

    Is this what JNU teaches? Attack ad homynum where reason soes not matter. Habib is not savy in Marx’s dialectical thought. I would not call him Marxist. Siding with theocrats is not what Che waould have approved, Basically Habib sides with the invading hordes of central Asia.He does not have the acumen to understand the life of Sanatani Indians and the invading theocrats . He will be liked by the west because th west is itselg under the spell of theocracy, Even Kant and Hegel are theocrats, Marx tried to break away and almost suceeded, Habib is inten on attacking the traditional Indian lebenswelt that is primarily based on experiential philosophy an epistemology of Nyaya , Vaisesika or Buddhist or Jain. How could such an incompetent person be considered a bearer of the mantle of Indian civilization.
    Dr, Habib explain why all mathematics froze after Islamic rule? What universities were created by the Turkish/Uzbeck theocrats. How was ontology or epistemology studied during their rule?
    Could ip go into a theocrat’s court and deny the self , deny God and deny the Koran as Nagasena did in Milinda’s court. Could anyone do that?Anyone who is not proficient in basic philosophy cannot be a historian.The children of JNU are not taught critical skills of evaluation. They are taught platitudes that are congruent with the goals of the international bourgeoisie and the ancestorial religion of Christianity and Islam

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