The Prof who opposed Jamia minority character is JTA new president

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The result of the Jamia Teachers' Association (JTA) election has been officially declared with Professor MS Bhat winning the president post. Khalidi Hamidi could only get 154 votes and Bhat got 332.

Manisha Sethi (220) lost to Professor Ibrahim (263) for the general secretary post. For the joint secretary post Mahmood (227) won with Manaullah bagging (151) and Rajneesh (107).

Teachers participated this morning to elect a new JTA with the tenure of the old association coming to an end.

The win of a Left-leaning Bhat is being celebrated on the campus. A teacher on the condition of anonymity said: "The win of Bhat will certainly change the equation on the campus. As a man of values he can stop the new administration from bullying teachers. Of late many teachers have been victimised and we hope that things would get into order."

Opposed minority status?
But many on the campus are apprehensive. They say the Professor had expressed his unhappiness after Jamia Millia Islamia was granted minority status. A New Delhi-based political magazine Hard News in its April 2010 issue quoted Professor Bhat as arguing: "Jamia is a movement and declaring it a minority institution would be the anti-thesis of the basic tenets of why Jamia was established in the first place...

"It was an experiment at nation-building wherein a parallel system of education - nai taleem - aiming at an amalgamation of modern and traditional thoughts was devised to instill values of enlightenment, secularism and pluralism. Any move to reverse this character of JMI would be of great disrespect to the people who gave their life for its creation."

However, an insider said on the condition of anonymity that the issue of minority character was discussed with Bhat before his name was floated and he had told us that the issue was closed. “It was only after this that most of the teachers elected him with a thumping majority as the fraternity needs a bold man who could take on the new administration.”

Bhat is an old hand at the University with 27 years' teaching experience at Post-Graduate level in the Economics department.

Author of many books, he was the favourite at the husting. Also he has presented papers in some important seminars in the past on Jammu and Kashmir.

Besides teaching, his interest is also in journalism as he is a freelancer. He is associated with a number of research and cultural organisations. To his credit are more than hundred articles and he acted as honorary consulting Editor to The Greater Kashmir for three years.

For the last six years, he has been project coordinator UGC Sponsored Project: Computer application programme, department of Economics, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.