Full Support to Gen. Shah

I read in the media that AMU has now permitted undergraduate girls from the Womens College to visit the Maulana Azad Library on Sundays, and arranged transport for them ( post graduate girls and girls from the engineering and medical faculties were always permitted entry there ). The VC Gen. Shah has also  handled the Raja Mahendra Pratap issue very tactfully, instead of letting it get communalized, as some people with their own agenda were trying to do.

  It is deeply regrettable that some people with their own agenda had painted Gen. Shah as a Talibani or fundamentalist. When he had met me in Delhi recently he told me that although he was a practising Muslim,and not afraid to say so openly, he had never felt any sense of discrimination throughout his long, distinguished career in the Indian army. In fact he told me that the Indian army was perhaps the most secular organization in the country, and he had tried to persuade more Muslim boys of AMU to join it.

  He no doubt made some mistakes. When some girls of the Womens' College demanded that undergraduate girls should be allowed entry into the Maulana Azad library, instead of straightaway rejecting the demand he should have said " I will consider ". Similarly, when some boys  demanded that Times of India should be banned in AMU, he should have said " I will consider " instead of orally saying that Times of India shall not come to AMU ( he never passed any written order ).

  However, we are all human beings, and we all make mistakes. Gen. Shah is a simple soldier, as he himself told me, and army people are often not aware of the ways of the world outside, and how their words,  sometimes said in lighter vein, or  on the spur of the moment, can be misconstrued. But he has realized his mistakes, and corrected them.

   In my opinion, Gen. Shah is a very upright man, and AMU is lucky to have such a fine person as its VC. I know of several VCs who did great damage to their institution during their term. Gen. Shah is thankfully not one of them.

  Shame on the people who tried to defame Gen. Shah. Full support to him.