Unnamed Muslims
Credit: The Hindu
Muslim students find themselves politically homeless when the language does not make space for Muslim identity. It comes from a political landscape where Muslims are either aggressively termed as a threat or purely avoided. While the right wing frames them as a problem, a threat, a terror, liberals and leftists generalise them by using terms like “minorities”.
The newly formed Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) had demanded the resignation of Education Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan because of the NEET paper leak and other problems in the education system. The protest has now ended with its demands being accepted. However, it still draws criticism for not speaking clearly on the issues students of a muslim community face in India. Earlier this year, in January, controversy erupted at the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Institute of Medical Excellence (SMVDIME) in Reasi, Jammu and Kashmir, after a significant number of students from the Muslim community got admitted to its newly approved MBBS programme, many from Kashmir. Groups associated with the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Sangarsh Samiti and other pro-BJP and pro-RSS organisations objected to the proportion of students being Muslim, despite the students securing admission through NEET merit. The controversy raised questions over why Muslim students’ success through a merit-based system was being treated as a problem. The college later lost permission to run the MBBS course, with authorities giving reasons for deficiencies in infrastructure, faculty and clinical facilities. The students were shifted to other government medical colleges so that they could continue their education. Even if the explanations given by the authority are correct, their political meaning demands attention. A merit-based process produced Muslim students, even though it created a communal outrage leading to the protest by right-wing groups, and then the decision arrived in technical language that left students helpless. This is exactly the pattern that leaves many Muslims politically homeless.
If Muslims are constantly named as a problem by one side and left unnamed when they are harmed by the other, then are Muslim students supposed to find themselves in the language of justice?
