The University Grants Commission (UGC) has suggested that the government decide on removing the word ‘Hindu’ from Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and ‘Muslim’ from Aligarh Muslim University(AMU) to reflect the secular character.
The suggestion is mentioned in an audit of AMU made by the committee set up by the UGC. The UGC carried the audit out at the behest of the Human Resource and Development Ministry.
The committee comprises of IIT Madras professor Shripad Karmalkar, Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati University VC Kailash Sodani, Guwahati University professor Mazhar Asif and IIM Bangalore professor Sankarshan Basu. The members inspected AMU before recording the audit report.
The committee has suggested that AMU should be renamed to Aligarh University or name the University after its founder Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. The same suggestion was given to BHU as well.
The panel members argued that since AMU is a centrally funded University it makes them a secular institution and must remove Muslim from the name.
The committee has also questioned AMU’s method of recruiting a vice chancellor and asked for the procedure to be tweaked to align with the appointment procedure of other central universities.
The audit report also said that AMU will have to give a five year gap before they recruit any of their ex students as teachers. This suggestion came after noticing that most of the faculty are ex students.
