Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) and Banaras Hindu University (BHU) have been suggested to drop the words ‘Muslim’ and ‘Hindu’, respectively, from the names. A government audit of central universities has suggested the educational institutes to remove the words so as to reflect their secular character, reported the Indian Express. To investigate the complaints of irregularities against 10 central universities, University Grants Commission (UGC) on April 25 set up five committees at the behest of the HRD Ministry.
The suggestion is contained in an audit of AMU by one of the five committees set up by UGC. However, the AMU audit did not cover BHU but it referred to the institution’s name in its report.
The committee in its audit of AMU suggested that the institution should either be called just ‘Aligarh University’ or be named after its founder, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, reported the Indian Express. Citing the same reason for BHU, the committee recommended it’s name be amended, too.
The suggestion of revising the name came out of the logic that since AMU is funded by the Centre, it is a secular institute, Indian Express reported the panel members as saying.
As per the report, apart from AMU, the institutions that were subjected to an “academic, research, financial and infrastructure audit” by the committees, also included: Pondicherry University, Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University in Uttarakhand, Central University of Jharkhand, Allahabad University, Central University of Rajasthan, Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya in Wardha, Central University of Jammu, Hari Singh Gour University in Madhya Pradesh and University of Tripura.
The committee that inspected AMU and Pondicherry University consisted of Shripad Karmalkar who is a professor at IIT-Madras, Guwahati University professor Mazhar Asif, Sankarshan Basu who is a professor at IIM-Bangalore and V-C of Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati University Kailash Sodani, as reported by the Indian Express.