By Heena Fatima
New Delhi: Allegations of non-Muslims’ religious conversion at Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) have ignited outrage among the university’s students and faculty, who have accused Hindutva groups of tarnishing the university’s reputation by fomenting controversy on campus.
“This is happening due to the interference of Hindutva organisations in the university. It is being done solely to defame the institution,” said Mohammed Alfauz Azmi a PhD scholar at Jamia Millia Islamia. Azmi is associated with the Fraternity Movement, the student wing of the Welfare Party of India, advocating democracy, social justice, and fraternity.
“Nothing of this sort happens here,” he said, questioning the evidence behind such conversion claims.
A report released on 15 November by Call for Justice, a Delhi-based social and not-for-profit trust, has alleged that Jamia engages in “discrimination of non-Muslims and conversions of non-Muslims”, highlighting a pattern of bias at the institution. It highlights instances of discrimination against non-Muslim students and faculty, with testimonies revealing widespread bias and prejudice based on religious identity.
Speaking to The Sunday Guardian, Ravi Harjai, the NGO’s founder, said that the report is based on interviews with nearly 60 individuals. He spoke about instances of non-Muslim students being denied hostels, facing stipend delays, and receiving threats to convert. Harjai also highlighted a demographic shift, noting that Muslims constitute 90 percent of the institution, compared to a 50 percent reservation for Muslims in 2011.
Nadeem Ahmed, Assistant Professor at Kirori Mal College and a member of the fact-finding team, claimed that complaints of conversion have been emerging from Jamia since 2005.
This story was originally published in theprint.in. Read the full story here.
