Delhi University’s Academic Council has passed a motion to remove a chapter on Pakistan’s national poet Muhammad Iqbal from the political science syllabus, as per media report, citing members of the statutory body. Iqbal was born in Sialkot in 1877 in undivided India. He is often credited with giving birth to the idea of Pakistan.
At Delhi University, the academic council has decided to remove the chapter titled ‘Modern Indian Political Thought’ which is part of BA’s sixth-semester paper. The university’s executive council (EC) will take a final call on the proposal, which is scheduled to meet next on June 9.
Reacting to this, DU students and ABVP appreciate the decision to scrap fanatic Mohd Iqbal from syllabus.
“Delhi University academic council decided to scrap fanatic theological scholar Mohd Iqbal from DU’s political science syllabus. It was previously included in BA’s sixth-semester paper titled ‘Modern Indian political thought,” the ABVP said in a statement.
“Mohammad Iqbal is called the ‘philosophical father of Pakistan’. He was the key player in establishing Jinnah as a leader in Muslim League. Mohammad Iqbal is as responsible for India’s partition as Mohammad Ali Jinnah is,” it added.
Notably, Mohammad Iqbal in his Allahabad Address in 1930 which he delivered at the annual session of the All-India Muslim League and demanded a separate homeland for the Indian Muslims.
It was the Iqbal who had convinced Muhammad Ali Jinnah to lead the Muslims when he had gone into self-imposed exile in London Muhammad Ali Jinnah. In one of his letters to Jinnah, he wrote: “I know you are a busy man but I do hope you won’t mind my writing to you often, as you are the only Muslim in India today to whom the community has right to look up for safe guidance through the storm which is coming to North-West India and, perhaps, to the whole of India”.
Iqbal always remained in constant touch with Jinnah and in one of his letters on 21 June 1937 Iqbal explained to Jinnah his vision of a separate Muslim state: “A separate federation of Muslim Provinces, reformed on the lines I have suggested above, is the only course by which we can secure a peaceful India and save Muslims from the domination of Non-Muslims. Why should not the Muslims of North-West India and Bengal be considered as nations entitled to self-determination just as other nations in India and outside India are.”
