Jammu University proposes to drop Jinnah, Iqbal and Sir Syed from political science syllabus following ABVP protests

Srinagar: A committee set up by the University of Jammu has recommended the removal of topics related to Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan’s national poet Muhammad Iqbal and educationist Sir Syed Ahmad Khan from the syllabus of the varsity’s MA Political Science programme.

The recommendation from the Department Affairs Committee has been forwarded to the Board of Studies, which will meet on Tuesday to discuss the matter and take a final decision.

This committee was formed following protests by Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) members demanding the removal of topics related to Muhammad Ali Jinnah from the syllabus. The ABVP had submitted a memorandum pressing for the demands to the University authorities as well.


“After thorough consideration, the committee unanimously resolved to recommend the removal of topics concerning Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Syed Ahmad Khan and Muhammad Iqbal from the course content of the one-year post graduate programme and two-year postgraduate programme in Political Science to the Board of Studies for its consideration,” read a statement from Department of Political Science.

Sannak Shrivats, J&K state secretary of the ABVP (the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological parent of the BJP), who led the protests last week, said they had a problem with how Jinnah was taught in the classroom. “In the revised syllabus, Pakistan’s founder appears in a chapter on ‘Minorities and the Nations’. This is a problem, especially when minorities of our country have rejected Jinnah and his two-nation theory,” Shrivats told ET.

He said this move from the University is a win for all the students and patriotic society of the nation who stood against these topics. “Jinnah was projected as leader of modern Indian political system, which is a problematic idea. He was responsible for partition and bloodshed and should be taught in that perspective,” Shrivats said.

In the memorandum, ABVP stated that presenting Jinnah as a political thinker of modern India is not only an oversight of historical facts but also an unnecessary glorification of his persona. It read that portraying him as a saviour of minorities is against academic impartiality and historical truth. However, the ABVP had not mentioned Iqbal and Sir Syed in their memorandum or the demands.

Meanwhile, ruling National Conference legislator Tanvir Sadiq termed the move as intellectual bankruptcy. "It is an intellectual bankruptcy if professors succumb to pressure and protests of few students with communal mindset and change the curriculum. University is a space to gain knowledge about everything but not necessarily endorsing it all. On partition when we study Mahatama and Nehru, we have to study Jinnah as well, that is part of the training," said Sadiq.