Dr Zair Hussain's Educational Philosphy

Dr. Zakir Hussain
He represented the best in our national culture and in the world's heritage of civilization. In him, the intellectual, the aesthetic and the practical blended harmoniously. Rare indeed are individuals in whom thought, speech and action are so fully integrated. Distinguished and poised, he chose the profession of a teacher and throughout his life he thought us greater sensitivity, greater devotion to ideals and to selfless work. “The nation mourns a great President and a great representative of the true spirit of India. Indira Gandhi New Delhi May 14, 1969. “ MINISTER OF COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION & BROADCASTING INDIA New Delhi. Dr. Zakir Hussain symbolised the best traditions of our composite Indian culture and served the nation with an outstanding sense of dedication to duty for nearly half a century. As the president, he had exemplified in himself our conception of a secular democracy in a very worthy manner. His keen devotion to scholastic and cultural pursuits gave a new meaning to the concept of service to the cause of education. His association with the Jamia Milia, the Aligarh Muslim University and numerous other institutions marked an era of service to the cause of education in this country. He has been a shining example of erudiction, dignity, nobility and humility. An eminent educationalist and thinker, he symbolized the best traditions of Indian culture and served with exemplary dedication for nearly fifty years. 2. Zakir Hussain was born on February 8, 1897, in Hyderabad where his father had migrated from Uttar Pradesh. Loosing his father at an early age, he returned to his ancestral home. After studying at the islamia High school, Etawah, he went for higher education to Mohammadan Anglo-Oriental College (now Aligarh Muslim University). He was known even in those days for his love of knowledge, his wit and eloquence and his readiness to help his fellow students. His record at College was brilliant not only in academic achievement but also in extra-curricular activities. 3. The turning point in his life came in October 1920 when mahatma Gandhi accompanied by Ali Brothers, visited Aligarh to explain his doctrine of Satyagraha and the need to boycott educational institutions controlled by the British Government. Zakir Hussain, then only 23 and a student of the M.A. class, was among the small group of students and teachers who were so profoundly moved that they decided to establish a National Muslim University by the name of Jamia Millia Islamia. Recounting, years later, the impact of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Zakir Hussain said: "I began my public career at the feet of Gandhiji, and he has been my guide and inspirer." He summed up Gandhiji's teachings and his own ideals in these words: to lead a pure life, individual and social; to insist on the means being as pure as the end; to have an active and sustained sympathy for the weak and down-trodden; to forge unity among the diverse sections of the Indian people. And Dr. Zakir Hussains life was very embodiment of these ideals. 4. Zakir Hussains unceasing quest of knowledge took him to Germany in the twenties. During his three years stay there, he acquired a deep love for European art, literature on music. The University of Berlin conferred upon him a Doctorate for his work in Economics, the subject of his special study. Even while absorbed in his scholastic and cultural pursuits, Dr. Zakir Hassain was untiring in expounding the meaning of India's fight for freedom under Gandhiji's leadership. 5. Returning to India in 1926, he became, at the young age of 29, the Vice Chancellor of Jamia, which had moved to Delhi. He held the position for two decades. He and his colleagues took a vow of simplicity to insure that the University's finances were not strained. Dr. Zakir Hussain's inspiration and leadership made the Jamia into one of the leading institutions of its kind in the country. 6. In 1937 Mahatma Gandhi invited him to head the National Committee on Basic Education to evolve a system of education suited to the need and the genius of a country where the overwhelming majority lived in the villages. The Jamia itself became a pioneering center of educational experiments. Dr. Zakir Hussain remained President of the Hindustani Talimi Sangh until 1950. He wrote extensively. Among his books are an Urdu translation of Plato's Republic, a critique of Capitalism, translations of several works on economics and education, and books for children. 7. Dr. Zakir Hussain refrained from active politics so as to be able to give his all to his University. In 1948, he took up the Vice-chancellorship of the Aligarh Muslim University at the insistence of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. He infused a new outlook in the University during his stewardship of eight years. He was also called upon to serve on a number of educational and other committees and commissions including the University Education commission and the Press Commission. 8. Dr. Zakir Hussain was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in 1952 as a distinguished savant. He was renominated in 1956. In 1957 he was appointed Governor of Bihar, an office he held until 1962. He continued to serve the cause of education and culture within the country and abroad in many ways. He represented India in UNESCO, and served as a member of its Executive Board during the years 1956-58. He traveled and lectured widely in Europe and America, propounding his ideas on education. He once defined a University as "primarily a community of scholars and students who should be treated as responsible members of a free and academic society, free to think, free to express their thoughts, free to refuse, to conform, free to be unorthodox and even free to err." This broad vision inspired his work as an educationalist throughout his life. 9. He was elected Vice-President of the Republic, in 1962. As ex-office Chairman of the Rajya-Sabha he won the respect of the House through his erudition, impartiality and gentleness. He visited many countries of Asia, Africa and the West. In 1963, he was awarded the highest honour of the land, the Bharat Ratna for his great service to the nation. 10. After serving as the Vice President for a term of five years, Dr. Zakir Hussain was elected President of the Republic in May, 1967. In his deeply moving inaugural speech he said that the whole of India was his home and all its people were his family. His wisdom and healing touch were of immense value to the nation during periods of stress and strain. His vision and adherence to principles, his grace and dignity, his high aesthetic sensibility, his understanding and compassion added a new luster to the high office he held, and earned for him the affection and admiration of all sections of people.


Dr.Zakir Hussain - A Life Sketch of the former President of India.Dr.Zakir Hussain (1897-1969) Zakir Hussian was born in February 1897 in Hyderabad in the south from where, acknowledging British suzerainty, the Nizams rule their large state, so called Hyderabad. Fida Hussain Khan, Zahir’s father had migrated there from Qaimganj in western U.P. where his ancestors, soldiering Pathans, has settled early in the 18th century, leaving their wild, mountainous and romantic home across the vague India-Afghanistan border. Of the Pathans of Qaimganj, who suffered, as did Pathans settled elsewhere, from endemic tuberculosis, Mujeeb has written: (Their) ideal of self-respect was served more often by doing away with rivals who gave offence than by acquiring wealth and worldly honor …. Generally Pathan opinion considered not the nature of a crime but a form of provocation that was declared to have led to it. Gulam Husain Khan, Zakir’s grandfather, stabbed a man who continued despite warnings, to carry away clay from his pond. But he also gave to the poor, shopped for the neighborhood widows and became the disciple of a Muslim Sufi and also of a Hindu called Bans Bihari. His son Fida Husain Khan moved at age 20 to Hyderabad, where he prospered as a printer and publisher of law books and a law reporter. Naznin Begum, Fida Husain’s wife, gave birth to seven children, all boys, of whom Zakir Husain was the third; four, including the two oldest, died of tuberculosis. Zakir Husain was raised on the ‘Baghdadi Primer’, which taught the Arabic alphabet, and on chapters of the Quran; some lessons in Persian and, following those, in Urdu was also given. Since his father had become important, Zakir and his brothers had to use a carriage to visit relatives living on their street; going on foot was not proper to their station. But Fida Husain died at 37 and Naznin Begum returned to Qaimganj with her children. Zakir Husain was ten. Four years later Naznin Begum died of plague. She had refused to send for her sons, saying, ‘It will disturb their studies.’ Zakir Husain was in a residential school at Etawah, the Islamia, started by Moulvi Bashiruddin, who hoped to impart English education as well as the Islamic way of life. His version of the latter included compulsory prayers, coarse clothes, hard beds and tasteless food. Zakir Husain survived the regimen, helped no doubt by the attention he received from Bashiruddin and from the school’s headmaster, Moulvi Altaf Husain, who spotting Zakir Husain’s talent, often chose him to represent the school in debating or writing competitions or to deliver an address of welcome for an eminent visitor. Bright as well as respected, Zakir Husain won the confidence of teachers and students alike; a peak of his Islamia phase was reached when, at his persuation, the management abandoned its practice of depriving a student of a meal for missing a prayer. The youth’s gentle exterior masked a rage. Like Muhammad Ali and Abdul Kalam Azad, who were several years older, and like thousands of other Muslims, Zakir Husain, 14 to 16 at the time, saw the Tripolitan and Balkan conflicts of 1911-13 as Europe’s aggression against the world’s only independent Muslim state, Turkey. He would wait at Etawah’s railway station for the arrival of The Pioneer, published in Lucknow, and rush back to tell his fellow-students what was happening in Turkey. Also, he would speak about Turkey’s plight at the local mosque and pass his cap round for donations to save Islam’s honor. His manner was mild but his words were strong: ‘Your coins will be converted into bullets that will pierce the hearts of the enemies of Islam.” Invited for dinner at Bashiruddin’s place, Zakir found the school’s founder sitting on a string bed. Bashiruddin made room on the bed for Zakir Husain. When the dinner of meat-and gravy arrived, Bashiruddin poured water on it. After it had been eaten, Bashiruddin said, ‘Zakir Husain, don’t look for pleasure in life.’ From Etawah Zakir Husain, sixteen, tall and getting filled, went to MAO at Aligarh, where he spent seven years. In 1957, delivering the years Convocation Address at Aligarh, Zakir Husain recalled ‘that hot mid-day forty-four years ago, when I first arrived at this University: Two of my brothers were already here. One of them helped me to buy a pair of shoes, some books and lantern in the afternoon. We had gone to the city on foot but returned in an ekka (a small horse-drawn carriage), for it was considered beneath the dignity of gentlemen to carry things in their hands. My brother left me in his hostel room and went off to meet friends, telling me that after sunset, when the bell rang, I should go to the dining hall. The bell rang somewhat earlier than I had expected. For sixteen years I had eaten without putting on a Turkish cap, a Turkish coat, socks and shoes; donning this this uniform caused some delay. I could not put the shoelace in the eyelets. When I put the lace through two eyelets and pulled, I pulled it all out…. And forgot completely the trick of knotting the shoelace that my brother had taught me in the afternoon…. When at last I left the room dressed and ready, it was quite late, and others and already gone to the dining hall. I did not know the way, After a fruitless search I returned to where my room was. We should suspect the details of this story, for Zakir Husain had a technique of sounding and appearing more helpless than he was. It was his way of putting others at ease. He would act diffident so that others might feel more confident and less envious, and also to attract assistance. But the posture of the lost soul could not survive scrutiny. Within days of arriving at MAO he was nicknamed ‘Murshid’ (‘Mentor’). His contemporaries would recall that Zakir Husain was ‘lethargic’, ‘light-hearted’, ‘irresponsible’ and one who ‘often cut classes’; that his conversation would ‘enliven the environment’; that he was an effective debater. He was elected vice-president of the schools union; he won prizes including the coveted Iqbal Medal; he stood first in his class in several exams. Failing to act on Bashiruddin’s parting advice, he sought pleasure, at least in food. He would ask for a ‘three-minute start at a dinner party’ but his friends would ‘loudly refuse to allow it’, knowing that ‘he will deprive them of their dinner’ if given the opening. But this picture too is incomplete. It leaves out of account a deeper, if also more troubled Zakir Husain, who wants to study, who remembers his painful bereavements and shares the Muslim unhappiness over Turkey; and who remembers too his sufi friend and distant relative, Hasan Shah. Going about with “his earthly belongings and his books strung at the two ends of a pole which he carried on a shoulder”, Shah timed his wanderings to be at Qaimganj whenever Zakir Husain went home for the vacations. Frequently, responding to a request of the sufi, who was thirsty for knowledge, the supposedly carefree, even careless, Mushhid of MAO would copy out a whole book-and copy it out with ‘such care that he acquired a remarkably fine handwriting. Some of Hasan Shah’s Sufism and familiarity with Persian also rubbed off on Zakir Husain. It is likely too that Shah’s freedom from religious narrowness confirmed Zakir Husain’s instincts. It would seem that Shah had purchased this freedom at a price. Rebuked once for prejudice against Hindus, Shah made amends by walking all the way to Peshawar in the North-West Frontier-the home of the Pathans-and back. Eyeing a medical career, Zakir Husain studied science. A year’s illness changed his mind; he switched to a bachelor’s course in English, economics and philosophy. Then, in the fall of 1920, when he was 23, an M.A. and Law student and a part-time teacher, he made what he later called ‘the first conscious decision of my life, perhaps the only one I have ever taken, for the rest of my life has but flowed from it. This statement cannot be literally true. Before this he had chosen subjects for his studies and at the age of 18 he had assented to his marriage-to a girl named Shahjehan Begum. But there is no doubt that the course of Zakir Husain’s life was being decided when he chose, in October 1920, to ‘non-cooperate’ with institutions aided by the Raj and therefore to leave MAO. On October 12, Gandhi and Muhammad Ali described their non-cooperation programme to students at the campus. Though Zakir Husain lacked ‘the urge to give up everything and follow’ Gandhi, a part of him had responded to Gandhi’s call for a sacrificial struggle. Jallianwalla had stirred his mind, as had Azad’s writings in Al Hilal and Al Balagh. But he had to be in Delhi, where Dr.M.A.Ansari examined him for an illness, when Gandhi and Muhammad Ali spoke to the students. Returning to Aligarh in the evening, Zakir Husain heard derisive comment at the station platform about Gandhi, who had spoken and departed. The Coarseness of some of the remarks, which were made by a group of strolling students, and the fact that some of his friends seemed to enjoy them, filled Zakir Husain, as he later told Mujeeb, ‘with the deepest of shame’ and with a conviction that atonement was called for. Muhammad Ali and his brother Shaukat, who were in town still appeared next day at the students union. With tears in their eyes they told the boys that they had failed in rousing them, that ‘they had come to bid farewell and were going away broken and beaten. This was a reference to the apparently successful efforts of pro-Raj elements on the campus to frustrate the hopes of Gandhi and Ali brothers. The disappointment of the brothers was so transparent that many students, including Zakir Husain, also began to weep. Then Zakir, running a high fever and not intending to speak, rose and announced that he would resign his teaching assignment and forgo a scholarship he was getting. It was clear that others too were willing to take risks; the despondency of the Ali brothers was not justified. Within a few days Zakir Husain was in Delhi, where he assured Ajmal Khan, Ansari and Muhammad Ali that a large number of teachers and students would leave MAO and join a national institution, if one was started. On October 29 the Jamia Millia Islamia – the National Muslim University – was born. The head of the prestigious Deoband seminary announced Jamia’s birth at a meeting in the mosque of MAO. Jamia members continued to stay in MAO’s buildings, and for a while it was nor clear who belonged to MAO and who to Jamia. Dr.Ziauddin, MAO’s principle. Met the situation by declaring the college closed and asking students to go home. A large number would not, so Ziauddin and his supporters wired the parents to come and rescue their sons. Zakir Husain was offered a government job; he turned it down. Finally, the Raj’s police was asked to remove the rebels. They marched out into tents and improvised lodgings. Nationalist newspapers reported their doings, and before long Jamia band were joined by a number of bright and dedicated young men from different parts of India. Some of them were Hindu Brahmins. Six months earlier, the idea of their teaching in a Muslim institution would not have entered their dreams of the dreams of the Muslims whose lives they were now sharing. Ajmal Khan was elected Jamia’s first Chancellor and Muhammad Ali its first Vice-Chancellor. A.M.Khwaja, one of Jawahar Nehru’s contemporaries at Cambridge, became the first principal. The Khilafat committee, which along with Congress conducted the non-cooperation campaign, financed the new college when it could, and some of its members tried to run it. The ups and downs of the Khilafat movement directly affected Jamia, as did the self-importance and egotism of some of its leaders. Of some of Jamia’s early students, Mujeeb has written: ‘their hearts were all fire, their heads were foggy. Thoughtfulness was almost completely lacking, so was balance of mind. It seemed they could do anything when roused, and nothing otherwise”. For a while ‘studies’ meant no more and less than a part in the Khilafat movement’s political campaigns. Many students courted imprisonment. Some were of the highest quality. Mujeeb describes one of them, Shafiqur Rahman Kidwai: He was in the final year of his B.A. in 1920, and distinguished by love of comfort. When the change came, he made a bonfire of his foreign clothes and took to coarse khaddar. Hitherto shy and silent, he became all at once a master of political rhetoric. His capacity for patient, persistent endeavor stood suddenly revealed. He was a sportsman; he could sing; he could laugh, he could stimulate and console. An even stronger tribute was paid to Shafiqur Rahman by Rajagopalachari, Mountbatten’s successor as Governor-General of India, who had observed him in Vellore jail, where the two were prisoners together in 1921-22. Rajagopalachari called the former Jamia student ‘a saint in the disguise of a citizen’. Zakir Husain, too, took to Khaddar, but did nor defy the Raj’s laws. He taught – when that was possible – and translated into Urdu Plato’s Republic and Cannan’s Political Economy. And after two years he left for Germany. As President of India Zakir Husain would recall: Dr.Hamied took charge of me, of my present and future. He decided that I should go to Germany for further studies. My objections, difficulties, inertia counted for nothing. He had decided, so I had to go. H e booked my passage, he accompanied me to Bombay. And he used the few days we were together in Bombay to teach me the elements of civilized living- how to dress, how to eat with knife and fork and generally how to conduct myself in European countries. Hamied, later a successful businessman in Bombay, had left Allahabad university to join Jamia. It is clear that he pressed Zakir Husain to go to Germany, where he himself went a few months later, but it is improbable that Zakir Husain’s account is the whole truth. The inadequacy portrayed in it was in part a put-on; we can assume that Zakir Husain himself wanted to make the journey. Mujeeb has well described Zakir Husain’s style: His obviously abundant intellectual energy was balanced by physical lethargy…. An effective means of protecting himself against all avoidable exertion and prodding others to come to his assistance, was an air of helplessness… I thought that in spite of his height and dignity he was a man who needed somebody to hold his hand and lead him around, till I discovered that he had more courage, more initiative and greater ability to handle men and situations than many who openly claim to possess these virtues. Thanks to Mujeeb, who was also in Germany at the time, we have a fairly clear picture of Zakir Husain’s there years abroad. Living most of that time in Berlin, Zakir Husain obtained a Ph.D for a dissertation on Britain’s agrarian policy in India; some of his work for this was done in London. But the philosophy of education seemed his chief academic interest, and he also did some Arabic. He enjoyed the company of Hamied and of Luba, the German girl Hamied married not long after arriving in Europe. Virendranath Chattopadhyaya or Chatto, Sarojini Naidu’s brother, who was also in Berlin sought fruitlessly to convert Zakir Husain to communism; Zakir Husain defended Gandhian non-violence in discussion with him. He visited Sweden, where he paid his way by writing an article on Gandhi for a Stockholm newspaper. But he was not careful with his money, or that of his friends. Thus he invested the cash he had and what he could borrow from Mujeeb and another Indian student, Abid Husain, to produce a pocket edition of Ghalib’s Diwan in Berlin, because a printing press there possessed an excellent Persian type, as well as a short book in German in Gandhi’s economic thought written by himself with the help of a friend from Berlin. As Mujeeb puts in, the publishers of the latter book thought that the money given to them to cover costs was a free gift and Dr.Zakir Husain’s courtesy did not allow him to remove this misunderstanding. In Mujeeb’s view, Zakir Husain’s three years in Germany were perhaps ‘the happiest in his life’. ‘He had no responsibilities; he was not tied down to any routine. The Germans he was meeting were eager to know about India and also companionable; their attention to detail and ‘ceaseless intellectual and aesthetic activity’ impressed Zakir Husain. But he did not emulate their sense of order Says Mujeeb: Dr.Zakir Husain had an antipathy towards ordered living, acquired probably during his student days at Aligarh, which he could not overcome. Though he admired a sense of order in others and as a teacher never tired of emphasizing its value, he seemed to regard it as an irksome limitation on freedom when applied to him. He could not keep a diary or plan his activities. Significantly, Zakir Husain made at least one speech in which he warned Germans against surrender to the new forces that could undermine their culture. Chatto has a sister, Mrs.Nambiar, who used to arrange occasions where Indian and Germans met one another. Then she stopped giving her parties and, in Mujeeb’s phrase, ‘our social life became blank’. One day Zakir Husain, feeling lonely, rang Mrs.Nambiar to ask when her next party was going to be. Her reply is not recorded, but it so annoyed Zakir Husain that he told Mujeeb, ‘I will show that Mrs.Nambiar is dispensable.’ This Zakir Husain proceeded to do by phoning a young woman he had met at Mrs.Nambiar’s Gerda Philipsborn. So began, in words of Mujeeb, ‘a friendship whose depths no one could fathom and which lasted till Gerda Philipsborn died in the Jamia Millia in 1943. Belonging to a rich Jewish family of Berlin, Gerda Philipsborn had a large circle of artistic and intellectual friends. Zakir Husain saw concerts, operas, plays and art exhibitions in her company. But ‘they lived their separate lives’, thanks to an apparent resolve by Zakir Husain against a romantic attachment. Since Gerda Philipsborn was only one among the women Zakir Husain met in Germany, Mujeeb would on occasion reel off to him ‘a list of your girl friends’. Depending on his mood Zakir Husain would, in response, either ‘frown with disapproval or add a name to the list’. Of one of them, Mujeeb writes: She was nearer forty than thirty and had a mass of hair and a large head, whose weight seemed to explain her pronounced stoop. Her eyes, too, were large and dark and told of centuries of suffering and sorrow…. She thought all the time of what she could do for Dr.Zakir Husain. She translated his thesis and typed it for him…but for her it was obviously not enough. The combination of Zakir Husain’s tall Indian figure, thick black hair, neat beard and intellectual capabilities made him attractive to German women. Zakir Husain did not follow, in Europe, the Muslim tradition that requires a man to avoid the company of women; and he was not immune to the call of the spring. Yet he managed to keep to the safe side of a line he had accepted. Of those we are looking at, only Fazlul Huq and Azad did not study in Europe. The rest, Sayyid Ahmed Khan, Iqbal Muhammad Ali, Jinnah, Liaqat and Zakir Husain, all did. Each was greatly influenced. Not unlike Iqbal, Zakir Husain felt in Europe that India and the world could be remolded. Iqbal hoped for creativity better than Europe’s, more uniting and less nationalistic, and thought that Islam would bring it about. Zakir Husain’s response was at once more modest and less limiting; he only hoped that more Indians would tap their creativity, yet, at the same time, he hoped that all Indians, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and the rest, would do so. But the news from home was bad. Jamia seemed to be disintegrating, a result of the collapse of the Khilafat movement. When, in 1924, the Turks abolished the Caliphate, no reason remained for the Indian Khilafat committee to collect funds to save the Caliph’s honor, or for Indian Muslims to contribute to the committee. Since the committee was Jamia’s only source of finance, this meant the new college’s bankruptcy. Muhammad Ali lost his interest, but Ajman Khan, who was encouraged by Gandhi’s support, khwaja, the principle, and some teachers and students were nor prepared to give up. They brought Jamia to Delhi, where rooms were found in the suburb of Karol Bagh. Though he seldom spoke about Jamia in Germany, Zakir Husain had not yielded his commitment to it. Mujeeb has recalled a crucial and moving conversation: One day early in 1925, there was serious talk about the Jamia Millia between him and Dr.Abid Husain, with me listening in. Dr.Zakir Husain said that he had decided to work in the Jamia Milla, come what may. Dr.Abid Husain offered to join him. I said I too would join the Jamia Milla. Dr.Zakir Husian looked doubtfully at me and said, ‘No, you should not’. I wanted to know why. He replied that the Jamia Millia was not a proper place for me. I still wanted to know why; if it was a proper place for him, why not for me? He said his case was different; he was already committed. When I persisted in saying that I would also join, he said with some sharpness, ‘Look, if I put you in a carriage at Delhi station and take you to an open space and tell you, “This is the Jamia Millia”, what will you do? I replied that if he called the open space the Jamia Millia, I would also say it was the Jamia Millia. We had all the while been standing in the middle of the room. In reply to my last remark he hugged me and said ‘Very well, you also join us.’ The three then sent a telegram to Ajmal Khan and Ansari saying that they would serve the Jamia. They added a request: decisions about Jamia’s future should await their return. A Year later Zakir Husain and his two friends sailed to Colombo. Atrain and a ferry took them to south India, other trains to Delhi. Zakir Husain went straight to Jamia, where those who had refused to bow down welcomed him with enthusiasm. He found that staff and students, about eighty in all, lived, ate and prayed on the first floor of a large commercial building and studied in the three houses across the street. A fourth house was the ‘office’. Zakir Husain took charge, acquiring at the age of 29, the title of Vice-Chancellor, or Shaikhul Jamia. From eight to four the Ph.D. from Berlin sat cross-legged on the floor, bending over a low writing table or leaning back against a hard khaddar-covered bolster. He made brief visits to Qaimganj, and a year after his return from Germany his wife joined him in a rented house in Karol Bagh. Until then the Vice-Chancellor slept in a room adjacent to his office. Teachers and students piled their hopes, fears and advice on him. He was fund-raiser, accountant, secretary, editor (and generally sole writer) of the Urdu journal The Jamia, and the solver of problems that arose. To the annoyance of Mujeeb, who wanted Zakir Husain to be businesslike, up and doing and reaching out to potential donors, the Vice-Chancellor would listen at length to fools and bores. Writes Mujeeb: He was expected to have no personal needs but to be available to anybody at anytime, to consider only the wishes and needs of others, to be ready with consolation or advice on all matters, to continue the idlest conversation till the other party or parties had had enough of it. Zakir Husain’s salary was Rs 100 a month. Abid Husain and Mujeeb, owners like him with European degrees, were given Rs 300 each to begin with, but they soon agreed to accept Rs 100, whereupon Zakir Husain reduced his salary to Rs 80. Two Years after Zakir Husain’s return, a new constitution placed Jamia’s governance in the hands of the society whose members pledged themselves to twenty years service to Jamia on a salary not exceeding Rs 150 a month. Not that these salaries were actually paid. Until 1944, when salaries were at last given in full and debts to teachers began to be cleared, Zakir Husain was receiving Rs 40 a month in cash and Rs 40 in credit. The share she had in her grandfather’s estate brought Zakir Husain’s wife Rs 10 a month. That was about all. Zakir Husain had property in Qaimganj but the relative managing it kept all the income. It was not unusual, therefore, for Zakir Husain to ‘stand meekly before his wife and say he wanted money, or for his wife to send the servant boy to borrow from the bania in a nearby shop. Forty years later, when Shahjehan Begum was the first lady, Subba, the bania, received hospitality at Rashtrapathi Bhavan. But, though his clothes were of coarse khaddar, Zakir Husain was always neatly dressed, and his bearing was dignified, so that he looked like nothing so much as an aristocrat who had adopted a simple life-style, no one coming to borrow from him could think that Zakir Husain had no money to lend. Since he lacked the courage to return plain ‘no’ to a request, Zakir Husain parted with cash and furniture that his family needed. Those wanting comforting words from him also received them, and seekers of interesting conversation were rewarded too. Mujeeb has described ‘the type of conversation (Zakir Husain) enjoyed best’: He had distaste for saying simple things simply, and was clear and direct only if he had to be. He would maintain the opposite of what the others seemed to be agreed upon, or even of what was obviously the reasonable position. His colleagues looked forward to these conversations; they would see that his intellectual positions had nothing to do with his actual practice. Fund-raising required tact rather than dialectics and Zakir Husain had that as well, though not in the quantity Ajmal Khan possessed. As Jamia’s Chancellor, Ajmal Khan helped in the raising of finances, but the time he gave to this was limited by his practice as a physician, which was large, and by the numerous obligations tied to his social and political standing. Now and then, however, he would have Zakir Husain and perhaps Mujeeb speak of Jamia to some of his rich friends. On one such occasion a courtier of the Nawab of Rampur asked Ajmal Khan what the British government thought of Jamia. ‘Instead of replying to him’, Mujeeb recalls, ‘Hakim Ajmal Khan asked someone present to pull aside the curtains as there was not enough light. This interruption enabled the conversation to be given another direction. Gandhi helped, discreetly. Zakir Hussain agreed with him that the Mahatma’s active involvement in raising funds ‘might have an unfavorable effect on Muslim opinion about the Jamia’. The two met for the first time at Gandhi’s Ahmedhabad ashram in June 1926 and took to each other instinctively. That a Muslim convinced about Hindu-Muslim unity was in charge of Jamia pleased Gandhi; and Zakir Husain was glad to find that the Mahatma trusted him and offered no advice on how the Jamia should be run. ‘This understanding and trust grew with time’, as Mujeeb says, but it was not always recognized by others. When Gandhi announced his disobedience campaign in 1930, Zakir Husain had to choose whether Jamia should join the protest and wind up its work, or stay clear of it. He decided unreservedly that Jamia’s academic work should continue. Members feeling the call of conscience could, as individuals, take part in the disobedience provided they gave due notice, but Jamia would continue with its normal work. It was a decision that Gandhi understood, but some of his followers did not. Shafiqur Rahman and some others at Jamia – including Devadas Gandhi, the Mahatma’s son, who was teaching Hindi at the time-joined the Gandhi-led campaign against the Raj; the rest quietly went on teaching; and Zakir Husain proceeded to Hyderabad to persuade the Nizam to give Jamia money. This was a bold bid. His position dependent on British goodwill, the Nizam was hardly the man to approach for funds by one who was, or thought to be, an ally of the seditionist Gandhi. But what Mujeeb calls Zakir Husain ‘shrewd appraisal of person, his tact and charm’ worked, and the Nizam’s council sanctioned a cash grant of Rs 50,000 for a building and a monthly grant of Rs 1000. Zakir Husain announced his success to the Jamia community, to the latter’s ‘immense relief’, but a great deal of the pleasure vanished when it became clear that the monthly grant, which could have covered many salaries, would go first to Delhi’s British Chief Commissioner, who would decide whether Jamia deserved it. Although Gandhi’s campaign was followed by his 1931 pact with Irwin, the Viceroy, Delhi’s Chief Commissioner withheld the Nizam’s grants from Jamia for four years. He could feel progress, Jamia had brought out books for children, including some that Zakir Husain had written himself, and a magazine for children, Payam-e-Talim, that was proving popular. In the world of Urdu these were pioneering ventures. A primary school, too, had been started. Thanks to the abilities of the man looking after it, Abdul Ghaffar Mudholi, its young pupils were showing ‘self-confidence, spontaneity and a cooperative spirit. One day in 1933, when Zakir Husain was distributing sweets to the boys who had passed a test in the primary school, a peon came and whispered to him that his three year old daughter Rehana, described by Mujeeb as ‘a lovely creature, with rosy cheeks, chestnut hair and large thoughtful eyes’, was very ill. Zakir Husain continued to give away the sweets. A little later the peon came again and told him, in his ear, that Rehana had died. Zakir Husain turned pale but did not stop what he was doing. Then the campus bell was rung and everyone learned that Dr.Zakir Husain’s girl had died. Asked afterwards why he had not left the school at once, Zakir Husain replied that ‘the children were feeling so happy, he did not like interrupt it’. His wife told Mujeeb later that for several days after the event Zakir Husain’s pillow was wet every morning. Gerda Philipsborn arrived at Jamia in December 1932. Zakir Husain has asked her not to come but she insisted; there was no question, in any case, of her staying on in Hitler’s Germany. As she had some experience in teaching small children, she was assigned to the primary school. Shortly before she arrived Zakir Husain told his wife how he and Miss Philipsborn had got aquanited, and how the acquaintance had grown into friendship. He had to honor, he added, the lady’s affection for him. After an eleven year stay, Gerda Philipsborn died at Jamia of cancer. When her disease was diagnosed, she requested Zakir Husain to read the Quran to her whenever he had the time and to arrange, on her death, a Muslim burial for her. The wishes were fulfilled. Her years at Jamia were not without tension. Her assumption that she had a right to Zakir Husain’s time and attention offended others and did not always please he was too polite to let her know that. Satisfied that there was nothing more to the relationship than what her husband had told her, Shahjehan Begum accepted it. Mujeeb, who was as resentful as anyone else of Gerda Philipsborn’s demands on Zakir Husain’s time, nevertheless concedes ‘her deep concern for (Zakir Husain’s) personal welfare and genuineness of her interest in the Jamia. Three streams, the traditionalist Muslim, nationalist and modern, seemed to come together at Jamia. Zakir Husain and his colleagues had broken away from MAO, now Aligarh Muslim University, because of the latter’s dependence on the alien Raj, which, in that Khilafat phase, they also saw as anti-Muslim. The role played at Jamia’s opening by the head of the Deoband seminary symbolized its Islamic character; its respect for Gandhi and his steady friendship for it spoke of its nationalist character. If Muslims thought at times that Zakir Husain was not loud enough about his Muslimness, some Hindus were disappointed that this quality was not wholly dissolved in his Indianness. They did not like it when, in 1935, he reminded Hindus that Muslims nursed the deep suspicion that under a national government there would be the fear of the cultural identity of the Muslims being obliterated, or when he added that this was ‘a price that Muslims are not willing to pay under any circumstances’. While not ashamed of the fact that, in his words, Jamia was a ‘Muslim institution with Islamic ideals’, he was resolved that ‘no narrow or false interpretations of these ideals will be allowed to convert Jamia into a breeding-ground of communalism’. To him, India was ‘our own dear country’. In that 1935 utterance he also said: ‘It is out of the earth of this country that we were fashioned and it is to this earth that we shall return’. We should note that Zakir Hussain was anxious lest nationalism turned into xenophobia, or love of Muslim culture into opposition to reform. He would speak, therefore, while defining, Jamia’s aims, of ‘the nefarious consequences of bigoted patriotism’ and argue, too, that Islam’s survival depended on its ability to function as a dynamic, creative force. In 1928 he had asserted that ‘releasing woman from the four walls of an unhygienic house’ was an act of saving, not destroying, Islam. His Islam he said was …The religion that made believers out of unbelievers, civilized men out of barbarians, that gave woman a status and a place in a society in which she had none before, which recognizes only an aristocracy of character amidst a brotherhood of man. After the collapse of the khilafat movement and of the Hindu-Muslim trust that had marked it, ‘religious intellectuals turned communal and reactionary, and progressive intellectuals turned agnostic’, as Wilfred Cantwell Smith puts it. But Jamia’s Muslim intellectuals lost neither their religious not their progressive beliefs. If Zakir Husain, Mujeeb and Abid Husain never yielded their right to be good or even devout Muslims, neither did they give up their faith in Hindu-Muslim friendship and in Muslim reform. Of their attitude to the Hindu-Muslim question we will have much to say in what follows; here let us note their position on reform. Despite orthodox objections, painting was introduced as a subject at Jamia. In other departures from custom, plays were written and produced and girls sat with boys in the primary school. Moreover, there was freedom and free discussion. As Mujeeb says: (Zakir Husain) did not enforce orthodoxy in any form. His practicing the tolerance envisaged in the Quranic verse. ‘There is no compulsion in belief’, created an atmosphere in which views could be freely expressed and differences of opinion and belief respected… The Jamia Millia has represented Muslim tradition and culture… without committing itself to the orthodox. However, Zakir Husain was spared the kind of attacks from orthodoxy that Sayyid Ahmed had received, forcing the latter to leave religious instruction at Aligarh in conservative hands. Zakir Husain’s tact helped him and Jamia. But his nationalism proved a great block. For a long while the Raj did not recognize Jamia’s degrees which meant that enrolment in Jamia’s college and secondary school was small. The qaum did not want to send its sons to an institution whose degrees would not qualify them for jobs. Some idealists did join, and felt redeemed from the thralldom of careerism; but the growth of Jamia’s college and senior school was effectively restricted. Another obstacle was Zakir Husain’s willingness, in 1937, to join with Gandhi in propagating the concept of Nai Talim or New or Basic Education, as it was called. Teaching based on the spinning wheel or spindle, or another suitable production device, said Gandhi, would be more useful for young pupils than learning-by-rote. Congress ministries had taken office in most provinces, and Gandhi hoped that they would provide every rural child with an education that was free and compulsory and revolved around creative work. Zakir Husain was one of those invited to discuss the concept at Wardha, near Gandhi’s new ashram at Sevagram. Rising to speak after the Mahatma had outlined his proposal, he told the gathering that the idea was original, and he disagreed with a view Gandhi expressed that production by pupils should pay for the schools. ‘There is a danger’, Zakir Husain said, ‘in over emphasizing the self supporting aspect… Teachers may become slave drivers and exploit the labour of poor boys…If this happens, the spindle will prove even worse than books’. Gandhi saw the spindle providing subsistence to the rural poor. It was cheap, it could be worked in the hut, and by everyone. Zakir Husain agreed, and he agreed, too, when Gandhi said that much could be taught along with the skill of spinning – knowledge of varieties of cotton and soils, arithmetic, history of the decay of crafts and of British rule, and so forth. But he could not accept the spinning wheel as a panacea, and he said so; and he said too that the development of the intellect through handwork should not become a fetish. Some of Mahatma’s admirers were shocked by Zakir Husain’s candor but Gandhi was not. He asked Zakir Husain to head a national committee constituted to prepare a scheme of Basic Education. The syllabus this committee recommended impressed many, including agencies of the Raj, as sound, and won Zakir Husain nation-wide recognition. In some schools in Congress-ruled provinces the syllabus was introduced; the experiment would have continued had Congress ministries not resigned in 1939. Jamia, however, was hurt even as Zakir Husain gained. Linked as it was to Gandhi and Congress, Basic Education was decried in Muslim circles, and the qaum became less willing than before to donate to Jamia. When Congress’s premier in the Central Provinces, Pandit R.S.Shukla, gave the name Vidya Mandir, or Temple of Knowledge, to the schools offering Basic Education, he made it easier for Muslim opponents of the scheme to attack the schools as places of Hindu worship that the qaum could not touch. Jamia suffered from the fall-out, as it also did when Congress’s ministries in U.P., Bihar and C.P. tried to propagate a Sanskritized Hindi. Yet headway was being made. Land had been acquired for a new campus at Okhla. Hyderabad had given another large grant, this time of a lakh. And an interest Zakir Husain found and displayed in the work of Maulana Ilyas and his Tablighi Jamaat, which prodded Muslims to understand and live out Islam, told the quam that fostering New Education had not made Zakir Husain less of a Muslim. One day in 1943, Mujeeb, holding charge while Zakir Husain was away and needing money ‘to meet the daily requirement’, found a large envelope on his desk; it contained Rs 10,000 in notes, sent by a Muslim whose confidence in Jamia had been restored. Jamia’s matriculation degree was recognized, and also the diploma it gave to those completing its teacher-training course. A new adult education wing achieved excellent results. The Tata trusts helped ‘gracefully’ toward technical education at Jamia. And in Hyderabad SirMirza Ismail, the premier, invited Zakir Husain to lunch and presented him with a cheque for Rs 5 lakhs. Mujeeb faults Zakir Husain in two scores. One was his inability to fend off unwanted callers. Until 1957, when he became Governor of Bihar and found himself with A.D.C.s who regulated visitors, anyone who wanted to could rob Zakir Husain of his time, energy and money. The second was Zakir Husain’s unwillingness to confine himself to the Jamia. He allowed himself to be elected to the court of Aligarh Muslim University, agreed to supervise affairs at Delhi’s Anglo-Arabic college and at a Muslim orphanage and worked for the Tablighi Jamaat and for Basic Education, flouting the Persian line he habitually quoted to his colleagues and students: ‘Hold to one thing and hold to it fast’. He loved Jamia and toiled for it; without him it would have perished. He supplied brilliant and effective ideas- a new course, a new technique for raising funds, a new exhibition or booklet to popularize Jamia’s work, and he extracted work from his staff and held them with his affection; but he did not, to Mujeeb’s regret, ‘devote his time and energy to the practical application of his ideas even in one institution. In Mujeeb’s unprovable view, the results might have been ‘revolutionary’ had Zakir Husain done so. Basic Education was introduced with enthusiasm in Jamia’s primary school but lost its momentum; students of teaching were taught to educate through craft – but not for long. Accomplishment rather than passing exams was announced as the goal at the secondary school but it was not really reached. Writing in 1946, Wilfred Cantwell Smith called Jamia’s system one of the most progressive and one of the best in India but it remained an example – a heartening example, to be sure – and did not become a dynamo. If, like most, Zakir Husain was several men in one, one of them, surely, was a Sufi. He responded to promptings of the spirit and had a mystical concept of knowledge. He would frequently quote Rumi’s lines: Knock at its body, knowledge is a snake; Knock at its heart, it is a friend, your friend. The Sufis spoke a language that appealed alike to the Muslim and the Hindu heart. So did Zakir Husain. “The stringing together of hearts was his longing, and he would often quote universally valid verses, such as: Ask not for water but attain a thirst And you’ll see waters bubbling on all sides. He exercised the Sufi’s freedom. Instead of praying five times a day, he would, often pray only late at night or early in the morning. There was an element of concealment in his prayer; and he prized the Quranic verse that spoke of believers who wake up at night and weep for their sins. His answers to questions about his beliefs were often incomplete or indirect, leaving hearers to make their own deductions. Once, when colleagues pressed him for his views on the Way to the heart of knowledge, he fixed his gaze on Mujeeb, who was greatly embarrassed, and recited a Rumi verse: It’s not the way I talk of, I seek him. Who’ll walk the way with me; It’s been said, first the comrade, then the Way. Mujeeb did walk with him. At least he carried Jamia’s burdens with Zakir Husain and became the Vice-Chancellor when, in 1948, Zakir Husain went to Aligarh. A second part of Zakir Husain was the cultured citizen who collected objects of art: bamboo sticks, when he had money for nothing else; pieces of calligraphy; brassware; and later in his life, fossils, rocks and paintings. Muslim culture gives a high place to good food, regarding it as one of God’s blessings to man and enjoying not only its serving but also, to please a host, its appreciative and hearty eating. This etiquette was fully observed by Zakir Husain. Combined with his taste for rich dishes, this contributed to the diabetes and glaucoma from which he suffered. Though in his mind he planned his speeches and lectures in advance, he hated the task of writing them down. He would put off the chore till the last, at times discovering ‘work’ that enabled him to do so. Engaging his eldest daughter Saeeda in a discussion, he would ask if she knew why he was wasting her time, and add, ‘it is because I have some urgent writing to do’. Once, at Delhi University, he commenced a lecture while a typist was still to type the concluding pages. When the inescapable moment of writing arrived at night, he would write sitting on his bed, using his pillow as a table. Mujeeb tried ‘for years’ to equip Zakir Husain’s office with a writing desk, but Zakir Husain would not agree. One day, when Zakir Husain was not in Delhi, Mujeeb had the low table and bolster removed and a chair and desk substituted. Zakir Husain ‘did not like the change’. As we have seen in earlier chapters, three wise men of the British cabinet arrived in India in 1946 to urge Congress and the league to agree on India’s future, and on an interim national government. To prove that it was Indian rather than Hindu, Congress wanted, we saw, to name one of its Muslims to the new government. Abdul Kalam Azad, Congress’s president, was its first choice, but in view of Jinnah’s known hostility to Azad’s inclusion, Congress thought of Zakir Husain. Though not a politician, he was unquestionably able, and a nationalist. (But not a conformist. He had displeased some Congressmen by cooperating, while overseeing the Anglo-Arabic college, with Liaqat Ali Khan, Jinnah’s principal lieutenant, and also by declaring in a speech in Sind that denominational schools had their value.) Zakir Husain said he would be willing, but only if the League also wanted him. He desired, he said, to work for unity, not to cause a fresh disagreemnment. Azad and Nehru proposed Zakir Husain’s name to Wavell, the Viceroy, who mentioned it to Jinnah, ‘Zakir Husain?’ Jinnah exclaimed. ‘He is a Quisling. Utterly and entirely unacceptable. Though Congress and he were told that Jinnah was against his joining the interim government, Zakir Husain never came to know of the phrase Jinnah used to oppose it, which was not revealed until 1973, four years after Zakir Husain’s death, when Wavell’s diaries were published. Had Zakir Husain known what we know, his activities in the weeks that followed might have been different. These activities were linked to Jamia’s silver jubilee, which was celebrated with fervor in November 1946, three months after the Great Calcutta Killing. An interim government of Congress and League leaders had just been installed. It included pro-Congress Muslims-Wavell had at last overruled Jinnah’s objections – but Zakir Husain was not one of them; he had no wish to join a house-at-war, which is what the new government was. Responding to an inner prompting, Zakir Husain decided to use the jubilee to bring Jinnah, Jawaharlal, Azad and Liaqat Ali together, and to admonish them together. The Quaid-I-Azam, on whom he called, said bluntly that he was opposed to everything that Congress proposed or supported, and that this applied to Basic Education. Yet Zakir Husain’s tact was not without effect. As a result of the interview, Fatima Jinnah, the Quaid’s sister, came to see an educational exhibition at Jamia. She must have reported positively to her brother, for word soon came from Jinnah that he would attend the jubilee occasion. This was the climax of a huge, four-day affair. Food was scarce and tensions abundant, but Zakir Husain was determined to board and lodge two thousand persons, invited from all over the country, in a part of Delhi that had no water or electricity. The Jamia community laid roads, pipes and cables. Food grains, meat and vegetables were somehow procured. The campus heard rumors that dignitaries coming to the jubilee would be stabbed, and true stories of stabbing in the city. Zakir Husain concerned himself with a hundred details, including the placing and seating of the VIP’s to which their admirers, if not the VIP’s themselves, were bound to be extremely sensitive. Mercifully, and amazingly, everything went off well, and Zakir Husain, with Nehru, Jinnah, Azad and Liaqat Ali sitting beside him gave, in Urdu, what Mujeeb called ‘the most eloquent and moving speech of his life’. He spoke of Jamia’s willingness to suffer destitution for its ideals, of its faith that the almighty would protect it. He quoted a double affirmative from the Quran: ‘Indeed every hardship is followed by ease’. Then addressing the VIP’s he said: You are all stars of the political firmament; there is love and respect for you not only in thousands but millions of hearts. I wish to take advantage of your presence to convey to you with the deepest sorrow the sentiments of those engaged in educational work. The fire of mutual hatred, which is ablaze in this country, makes out work of laying out and tending gardens appear as sheer madness. This fire is scorching the very earth in which nobility and humanity are bred; how can the flowers of virtuous and balanced personalities grow on it? How shall we save culture when barbarism holds sway everywhere? These words may appear harsh to you, but the harshest words would be too mild to describe the conditions that prevail around us. An Indian poet has said that every child that is born brings with it the message that God has not altogether despaired of mankind, but has human nature in our country so lost hope in itself that it wants to crush these blossoms even before they have opened? For God’s sake, put your heads together and extinguish this fire. This is not the time to investigate and determine who lighted this fire. The fire is blazing; it has to be put out. Not only was the fire not put out, it nearly killed Zakir himself. Waery and ill, diabetes squeezing out his strength, he decided, a few days after independence, to have a short break in Kashmir. The papers spoke of killings on trains in Punjab and colleagues urged him not to travel, but, on August 21, accompanied by a servant-boy called Manzoor, Zakir Husain boarded a train to Pathankot. He traveled second-class, a wealthy resident of Jullundur named Fazle Haq sat in a neighboring first-class compartment. The train’s progress was slow and halting; at Ludhiana Zakir Husain went out and asked the stationmaster if there was a quicker train to Pathankot. He said there wasn’t, there was mischief in the eyes of a group who stood nearby. Zakir Husain returned to his compartment, where Fazle Haq, who had been drinking, joined him. When the train arrived at Jullundur, where Haq was to get off, the platform looked deserted, with a few Gurkhas strolling on it. It did not look as if the train would proceed further, and Zakir Husain had his luggage taken off too. A big burly man followed by a crowd of youth, walked up to Zakir Husain and instructed his accomplices to seize his luggage. Haq protested, the burly man repeated his order; Haq slapped him. ‘Shoot the two of them’ said the burly man to the Gurkhas, who aimed their rifles at Haq and at India’s future President. Manzoor jumped and placed himself between a rifle and Zakir Husain. The Gurkhas did not fire, but Zakir Husain’s and Haq’s luggage was removed. Meanwhile a railway officer called Harbanslal Kapur, who had been traveling on the train taken by Zakir Husain and who had been informed by Manzoor, in answer to his question, that Manzoor’s bearded boss was Zakir Husain, told the Jullundar station-master what was happening. The stationmaster arrived on the platform and took Zakir Husain and Haq into his office. Before entering the room, Zakir Husain turned and heatedly told the Gurkhas that their duty was to protect passengers, not to menace them, the soldiers seemed not to hear. Kapur, who had been searching for the Gurkhas commander, found a young Sikh officer, Captain Gurdial Singh, and brought him to the stationmaster’s office. When he saw the uniformed officer, Zakir Husain berated him for the role of his men. Looking anxious and ashamed, Gurdial Singh said, ‘I will take you to a safe place, sir’. ‘Find our luggage’, said Zakir Husain. Ordering the Gurkhas not to let anyone enter the stationmaster’s room, singh went to look for the luggage. Returning without it, he said to Zakir Husain and Haq, ‘Please forget about the luggage and come with me’. Despite Singh’s threats, the youths who had accompanied the burly man molested Zakir Husain, Haq and Manzoor. The three got to Singh’s army truck, but a crowd surrounded it and asked Singh to hand over the Muslims. He said he could not. ‘You can take away the bearded man’, said someone in the crowd, ‘but the other fellow belongs to Jullundur. Give him to us’. Singh said he would order his men to fire, the crowd retreated, and the truck got away. Kapur the Hindu, Singh the Sikh and Manzoor the Muslim had saved Zakir Husain’s life. The next day he returned to Delhi. Rejecting advice, he traveled again by train though, on Manzoor’s entreaty, he moved away from a seat by the window. The train reached Old Delhi station at 3 a.m. All the waiting rooms were full. Zakir and Manzoor spent the next hours on the roof of a cheap hotel near the station-its rooms were dirty and airless. They had to push to one side some goats they had found on the roof. After sunrise they took a bus to Okhla, and to avoid being seen, Jamia’s father walked across the fields to his home. That day or the next he met Nehru and Patel, and an incensed Jawaharlal flew immediately to Jullundur to chastise the town’s administration. Unwilling to face enemies or friends, Zakir Husain hid himself for a few days in Mujeeb’s house. Soon, however, disturbances started in Delhi. Many Muslims living in villages near Okhla were looted and killed, not by their Hindu neighbors, who had a long relationship of friendship with the Muslim villagers and with Jamia, but by organized groups from outside. Some Jamia men were attacked too. Shafiqur Rahman and Hamid Ali Khan, who was in charge of Jamia’s publications barely escaped with their lives. Led by Zakir Husain, who was obliged to forget his weariness and depression, the Jamia community organized the protection of its women and children and harbored a number of Muslims who had fled from their homes in surrounding areas. Nehru visited Jamia in the middle of one night; General Cariappa, head of the army, came and left behind a platoon of the Madras Regiment. ‘Keep the garden in trim’, Zakir Husain told Mujeeb. ‘If we are forced to vacate, let those who occupy this place after us feel we loved it. From Calcutta, where a fast by him restored security, Gandhi, 78, arrived in Delhi. His first question to those who met him at the station was ‘Is Zakir Husain safe, is the Jamia safe?’ The next day he went to Okhla. Later Zakir Husain recalled the visit: His fingers had got crushed in the door of the car and he was suffering great pain. In spite of this he laughed and provoked others to laugh, he infused courage into us, and advised us to stay where we were. He talked to the Muslim refugees on the terrace of the Secondary School, took an orphaned child in his arms and hugged and kissed her. Then he left, saying that he would do all that was necessary for our safety or perish in the attempt. Through on occasion he referred to Gandhi as his guru, or teacher, Zakir Husain was not a ‘follower’ of the Mahatma. In his life Gandhi was, in Mujeeb’s phrase, ‘a powerful influence’, and he told Mujeeb that what he admired most in the Mahatma was ‘his capacity to laugh at himslef’, but as we have seen, there were times when Zakir Husain frankly disagreed with Gandhi. Always, however, it would seem, there was affection between them. On January 10, 1948, at Shafiqur Rahman’s initiative, a number of Hindu and Sikh refugees from Pakistan, men, women and children were invited to ‘come and meet and eat fruits and sweets together with Muslim children and parents’. Three days later, his pain at Hindu-Muslim violence unrelieved, Gandhi started another fast. Unlike many who urged Gandhi not to take the step, Zakir Husain told him that he had ‘chosen the right moment to urge … people to purify their hearts’. ‘We are overwhelmed with shame’, he added, ‘that free India should have nothing to offer you but bitterness and distress. Delhi was safer after the fast, which was broken on January 18. Twelve days later Gandhi was killed. The desire to leave Jamia entered Zakir Husain’s heart some months after Independence. Voices on the campus were critical of his non-Jamia involvements, which he was not willing to eschew. He hoped, in fact, for a wider role, and he thought that Jamia needed a change at its helm. Having to go for funds to Nehru and Azad, who was Education Minister, was not pleasing to him. He had made one request but the government had sat on it, and he did not like the idea of beseeching rulers again and again. Yet money was needed if Jamia was to grow. A Vice-Chancellor who did not mind going to Nehru and Azad with the begging-bowl was called for. India, newly independent, required a person of Zakir Husain’s qualities but his enlistment was delayed because of Azad’s attitude to him. As a student of Etawah and Aligarh, Zakir Husain had been roused by Azad’s writings. He would speak till his death of Azad’s place in India’s freedom movement but, at least during the last ten years of Azad’s life, relations between them were not cordial. Azad, who was consulted by Nehru whenever the question of a Muslim candidate for a national role arose, seems seldom, if ever, to have raised Zakir Husain’s name. He felt, as he once told Zakir Husain, that the latter was not strong enough, but more personal sentiments may have also played a part. However, in November 1948, when Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) needed a new Vice-Chancellor, Azad asked Zakir Husain if he would serve. Zakir Husain said yes, provided the University Court elected him unanimously. This stipulation was met, and Zakir Husain took over at AMU at the end of November; three years later he was reappointed for a six-year term. AMU was and is a campus of critical significance, which derives from its prestige in Muslim eyes and from the role, over the decades, of its teachers and students. A major blow for the Khilafat movement had been struck at AMU, thanks in fair part to Zakir Husain himself. Later, the campus had supported the League and Pakistan. As Zakir Husain put it in December 1951, before an audience headed by President Rajendra Prasad, the place of Muslims in India would be ‘largely determined’ by ‘the way Aligarh works, the way Aligarh thinks and by the way India deals with Aligarh. There was sweet irony in his return to the campus. In 1920 the police had removed him in a truck; his coming back was forbidden. But his emotions now had more to do with homecoming than with vindication or victory. He said: When I was a student, I looked upon Aligarh as my all. It was my home, my garden, my native land… We had founded the Jamia Millia after rebelling against this place, but we never regarded the Jamia as something apart…. There too I was working for Aligarh. I was convinced that one day we would return to Aligarh. His task was difficult and delicate. Replacements had to be found for the many faculty members who had gone to Pakistan. Some of those who remained and supported the League and Pakistan; they needed protection from victimization. A Section of the students looked upon Zakir Husain as an intruder, even as one foisted by a government, which, it was said, saw AMU as, polluted because of its pro-Pakistan past and wished to ‘purify’ it. The secretary of the students union made biting remarks in a speech that was supposed to be one of welcome, and a whispering campaign contrasted Zakir Husain’s salary as AMU’s Vice-Chancellor with what he had been receiving at Jamia. Zakir Husain responded with goodwill to his detractors and with a complete absence of curiosity about the previous sympathies of the staff. The spirits of a fearful, even tense, campus began to be rehabilitated. He recruited professors and young lecturers, many of them Hindu, from different parts of the land, expanded the budget and had a German-designed engineering college built. Drafting the help of Begum Qudsia Zaidi of Rampur and studying local trees and flowers himself, he brightened the campus with bougainvilleas, flowering shrubs and roses, and lined every street with trees. Students were inevitably exhorted by him and, on occasion, rebuked, though only in roundabout language. And he used small instructive gestures. In the fashion of the day, students would at times call on him with their long coats unbuttoned above the waist. Saying nothing about it, the Vice-Chancellor would, while talking with them, quietly button up the coats. A year after he came to Aligarh he had a heart attack that would have killed him had a physician not arrived in time. Henceforth he would not eat as he liked. Yet he and his family were at last enjoying some long-forgotten comforts. The Vice-Chancellor’s house was large and adequately furnished; and several servants came with it. Zakir Husain was able to start a collection of fossils and to possess books that hitherto he could only borrow. The Aligarh Muslim University Act of 1951 added to Zakir Husain’s difficulties. Implementing a clause of India’s new constitution, under which colleges receiving grants from the government could not make religious instruction compulsory, this Act made religious study optional at AMU. Some AMU Muslims were displeased. They objected, too, to another provision of the Act, which, for the first time, enabled the election of non-Muslims to the university court. Not everyone at AMU praised Zakir Husain. Some of the meetings he had to conduct were unpleasant. There were insinuations that he had created a ‘new’ Aligarh of the sort desired by New Delhi. Giving in to his unhappiness, Zakir Husain once said publicly that he had lost hope of anything worthwhile being done at AMU. In the middle of 1956, a year before his term was to end, he resigned. Half of him hoped for privacy. The other half enjoyed life in public, prizing, for example, the nominated seat he occupied in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament, where his interventions had been rare but also of rare quality. He was still in Aligarh and wondering which half would be satisfied when Azad finally spoke to him and offered him the chairmanship of the University Grants Commission (U.G.C.), the body that oversaw and funded the nation’s campuses. Intrigued, Zakir Husain began as he frankly told a friend, ‘to desire a post’. Some days later he heard on the radio that Chintaman Deshmukh had been appointed to the job. He felt ‘utterly disgusted’. When Zakir Husain was back in his home in Delhi, a close associate of Azad, Humayun Kabir, called on him and said that Azad wanted to see him. The Pathan in Zakir Husain flared up. ‘Please tell Maulana Azad’, he said, ‘ that the distance from his house to mine is the same as the distance from my house to his. Later Azad and Zakir Husain ran into each other at a public function and Azad offered the explanation that the U.G.C. needed a man who was ready to be harsh. A year after Zakir Husain had left Aligarh Nehru decided to offer him the Governorship of Bihar. But nobody seemed to know where Zakir Husain was. Finally his whereabouts were discovered and a cable sent to Germany, where he was recuperating after surgery on an eye. Zakir Husain replied that he would give his answer on returning to India. It was yes. Though he had visited Bihar to raise funds for Jamia, Zakir Husain did not really know the state. However, a Governor does not have to be knowledgeable about the state he presides over. He is spared-except when circumstances are deemed abnormal, when he is supplied with advisers-the tasks of deciding or executing policies. His duties are to be gracious to callers and wise before audiences and to keep ministers in harmony with one another. Zakir Husain played these roles with distinction. By being what he was, he influenced politicians and charmed all who called on him, whatever their situation in life. When invited to launch, or otherwise play a role in a meeting, exhibition, performance, factory or whatever, many an Indian Governor, or other dignitary, has been content to utter impromptu banalities. With Zakir Husain it was a violation of culture to talk at random. Despite his distaste for writing out his talks, once he had agreed to go to an occasion, he would labour in order to make an intellectual contribution to it, reading up, if necessary for the first time, on yoga, or aspects of Jainism, or astronomy, or whatever. One of his significant talks was on Urdu: Urdu is the language which I first learnt from my mother, the language in which I still think, and from the literary and intellectual treasures of which I still derive benefit….It is not the language of a community or a religion; it was not imposed by any government …It is the language of the common people… and of the faqirs and saints who were anxious to communicate the love which overflowed their hearts to the common people who hung on their lips….It is not startled by what is novel, it does not shy at innovation, it does not consider any words as polluted. While holding this view of Urdu, he used, in his formal speeches, a number of Sanskrit words, even when Urdu equivalents were current. Some Muslims in Bihar regarded this as a betrayal; to Zakir Husain the use of Sanskrit words was his way of showing that as Governor he represented not the Qaum and Muslim culture alone but India and Indian culture as a whole. Still, his popularity among Muslims was affected. Hearing his Sanskrit words on the radio, many of them drew adverse conclusions about him. That as Governor he was helping a number of Muslim educational and cultural organizations was not known to them. A Governor has to swallow his disagreements with the decisions of his ministers and legislators. Unless he resigns, he signs. Once Zakir Husain threatened to quit, and Bihar’s ministers gave in. A Bill of theirs would have reduced the state’s universities to insignificant departments of their government. When Zakir Husain said that he would not possibly assent to such a measure, it was substantially modified. Except in this instance, Zakir Husain signed each time. He had accepted a constitutional role, and was content to be gracious and wise and to help in modest ways. When Azad died in 1958 there were rumours that Zakir Husain would take his place as Education Minister. Nehru talked with him but did not ask him into the cabinet. However, in 1962 Nehru proposed his name as Vice-President, to fill the place left by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. In May Zakir Husain was elected and sworn in. A Vice-President has four tasks. He chairs the Rajya Sabha’s sessions, receives and is received by rulers of other lands, lends prestige to ceremonies and functions, and is kind and encouraging to all who are able to call on him. Though he could not forget that it was to Nehru that he owed his position, Zakir Husain was an impartial chairman, and more than fair in giving time to opposition MPs. In private conversation he rated their performance above that of most Congress MPs. He also learned, for the first time in his life, to bang the table, to shout and to order men to silence. He journeyed to other lands, of course. Whether they met him at home or in India, foreign leaders used to the polite, sophisticated and predictable talk of international diplomacy were usually surprised to find that Zakir Husain was genuinely appreciative of and curious about their countries. This was not an attitude in which he was always backed by the foreign ministry, which arranged his tours or his appointments with visiting dignitaries. Frequently, the ministry’s draft of an address by him to an audience in another land was patriotic in a narrow and self-defeating sense; overstressing India’s contribution toward peace, culture and justice, it would underplay the host country’s role. Zakir Husain would rewrite speeches, for the sake both of fairness and of sound diplomacy. Because he was Vice-President, Zakir Husain was besieged with invitations. Because he was polite he accepted many of them. Because he spread charm, he was importuned all the more. He told Mujeeb that his smile had become a fixed part of his face and his jaws ached from constant grinning. Not that he had turned into a machine. He would identify himself with the work of those he was with, writers, painters, musicians, or botanists, or young men and women aspiring to be such, and stimulate and encourage them. And if he went to a place he had known before he had become so important, he would look out for the humble person there who knew him in the past, a mali perhaps, or a peon or a driver, who would be too diffident to come forward on his own to greet the Vice-President of India; On finding the person, Zakir Husain would grasp his hand, or embrace him. If, as happened but very rarely, someone called on him thinking of what he or she could do for Zakir Husain, and was curious about what was in his mind, he was very grateful. Such persons-he told Mujeeb-helped sustain his faith in human nature. In power and popularity Zakir Husain was hopelessly outranked by Nehru, yet in protocol the Vice-President was placed above the Prime Minister, and physically Zakir Husain was easily the taller of the two. Sometimes these factors made Zakir Husain a little uncomfortable in Nehru’s company; he would try to compensate for it by being the deferential younger brother. Nehru died two years after Zakir Husain became Vice-President; Zakir Husain spoke movingly of his grief. India and Pakistan clashed a year later. When the neighbors come into conflict, a Muslim citizen of India experiences thoughts that do not trouble his Hindu compatriot. He wonders, at times, whether his loyalty is being questioned; and he wonders too whether the conflict will hurt Hindu-Muslim relations in India. In Zakir Husain’s case there was a third factor. A brother of his, Dr.Yusuf Husain, was a professor in Pakistan. Shortly before the 1965 war, Zulfikar Ali Bhutta, at the time an adviser to President Ayub of Pakistan, had visited New Delhi. At a lunch given for him at the International Center, Zakir Husain sat in the middle. Placed to his right, Bhutto ignored him totally and talked past him to an I.C.S.officer sitting on the Vice-President’s left. Zakir Husain sat through the lunch without turning to either side and without an expression on his face. The pact of Tashkent followed the 1965 war. The following morning Lal Bahadur Shastri died on Soviet soil. Zakir Husain stood with Radhakrishnan to receive Shastri’s body and observed the selection, by Congress’s leaders, of Nehru’s daughter as Prime Minister. A year later Congress was once more returned to power at the center, but its majority was considerably reduced and it lost important states to opposition parties. It had to choose a candidate for President. Radhakrishnan was expected to retire, and apparently wanted to. It was widely expected that Zakir Husain would succeed him. His performance as Vice-President had been without blemish. His elevation to Rashtrapati Bhavan would have conformed to what had happened five years earlier, when Radhakrishnan moved up from the Vice-Presidentship. Moreover, Zakir Husain seemed about the only man who might be acceptable to Congress and the opposition both; in view of the latter’s increased strength, this was an important factor. However, led by kamaraj of the Tamil country, some of Congress’s chief’s urged Radhakrishnan to offer himself for a second term. Their aim was to circumscribe the powers of Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister, who was showing more independence than they had foreseen. In their belief Radhakrishnan was more likely than Zakir Husain to stand up to Indira; they proposed a re-election of the two in the positions they held. Stories appeared in the press that Radhakrishnan was willing to serve another term; true or false, they were not contradicted. Zakir Husain now made an astute move, which was accorded with his sense of self-respect. He announced to the press that ‘he would under no circumstances agree to remain Vice-President for a second term. This strengthened his position and that of Indira Gandhi, who had made plain her preference for Zakir Husain. Knowing that the opposition would capitalize on any impression that Congress had been unfair to Zakir Husain, Kamaraj and his allies yielded to Indira Gandhi’s wish and called off their plea to Radhakrishnan. On April 9 Radhakrishnan announced his retirement. On April 10 Congress adopted Zakir Husain as its candidate. Some in the opposition said, with or without truth, that if Congress’s leaders including Mrs.Indira Gandhi, had gone about it the right way, Zakir Husain would have been everyone’s candidate. However, either because Congress erred or because the opposition could not free itself from its habit of opposing, Zakir Husain’s candidacy was contested. K.Subba Rao, shortly to retire as the Supreme Court’s Chief Justice, was named as the opposition candidate. Zakir Husain’s prospects were not poor. Congress had a small but clear majority in the electoral college, which consisted of elected members of the assemblies of the states, as well as elected members of the two houses at the center, whose votes had higher value. However, votes for Subba Rao from a few dozen Congress legislators would result in Zakir Husain’s defeat. A few in Zakir Husain’s circle of relatives and friends feared that some Congressmen would vote against Zakir Husain because he was a Muslim. After he was nominated, Zakir Husain went to the U.S.A. to keep previously made engagements. He returned three days before the election. There was some voting across party lines, but, on balance, it was in his favor. A few Congressmen did vote against him, but not, it would appear, because he was a Muslim. A larger number of opposition legislators voted for him, because he was Zakir Husain. Winning by a 4:3 ratio, he was sworn in on May 13 1967. Friends poured into the Vice-President’s residence on Maulana Azad Road to offer congratulations. A rejoicing but shy Shahjehan Begum served barfis. At seven the next morning he went to Rajghat, to, in his words, ‘rededicate myself at the samadhi of the man who first showed me the way to devote myself to the service of my countrymen. He recalled the expression Ram Raj, clarifying that Gandhi used it for a society where the downtrodden were uplifted. He said he was pledging himself ‘to the totality of my country’s culture’. After his election, and before he was sworn in, he had called on the Hindu religious leader, the Sankaracharya of Sringeri, who was in Delhi, and on Mani Sushil Kumar, the Jain priest and sought their blessings. Some of these gestures disturbed the quam. There were whispers that Zakir Husain was diluting or losing his faith to curry favor with Hindus. Wasn’t Ram Raj a Hindu term? Should a Muslim seek a Hindu’s, or a Jain’s blessings? Zakir Husain’s explanation that Gandhi employed Ram Raj as a phrase for a caring society was ignored. Criticism continued and was biting. ‘People only torture with their tongues now’, he told Mujeeb, who noticed that a letter from a Muslim had wounded Zakir Husain. The President quoted Ghalib to Mujeeb: I speak the truth, the ignorant Lash at me with their tongues. Oh God, have judges now eschewed The scaffold and the Zakir Husain was much too refined to employ gestures or expressions as a means of gaining cheap popularity among Hindus. Having attained India’s highest office, he did not even stand in need of it. (The Prime Ministership was no doubt a more powerful office, but Zakir Husain’s health and aptitudes ruled out any desire in that direction). He said what he said and did what he did because he wanted to show Hindus and Muslims alike that an Indian, and not just a Muslim, had become President. He wanted to honor, and to be seen to honor, ‘the totality of Indian culture’. There was also, Mujeeb suggests, another factor. ZAKIR Husain seems to have felt that India’s Muslims, who, rightly in his view asserted their cultural identity, did not generally acknowledge a corresponding Hindu right. This might have been a reaction against Hindu attitudes. Even so, it amounted, in Zakir Husain’s view, to lack a generosity and hardness of heart. He found several Hindus respecting his Muslimness; he wanted Muslims to respect Hindu culture. In his view they were not doing it, or not doing it enough; and he remembered how, back in 1920, some at Aligarh had been disrespectful in their talk about Gandhi. In Mujeeb’s opinion, Zakir Husain wished, through the gestures that annoyed the qaum, to atone for Muslim shortcomings. Troubled by Hindu errors, Gandhi would fast. Pained by the qaum’s narrow-mindedness, as he saw it, Zakir Husain would go out of his way to show respect to Hindu culture. Why did Zakir Husain nor directly speak against the narrowness he perceived? His courteous nature came in the way. Yet courtesy is not always a wise guide. Frankness on his part, a direct word to the qaum that Hindu identity too needed to be respected, might have helped the qaum more, and offended it less, than his gestures. At the end of 1967 he was to lay the foundation stone for the Guru Govind Singh Bhavan of the Punjab University at Patiala. As he tried to write a speech for the occasion, Zakir Husain remembered that a Muslim had killed Guru Govind, and that the guru’s father and sons had been executed at the behest of a Muslim ruler. Perhaps, too, he remembered his little Rehana, and his brothers, who died young. He remembered the long, sad tale of Sikh-Muslim violence. And he remembered how a Sikh officer had saved his life in 1947. Tears fell on his draft. He resolved to be strong while reading the speech but his eyes were wet again; so were of his largely – Sikh audience. Zakir Husain said: The whole life of Guru Govind Singh is a unique story of sacrifice, toil, educative activity, military talent, unrivalled valour, boundless graciousness, and unfathomable love. There are in this story accounts of hardships suffered such as shake the heart and of success that fills it with hope. If anyone is innocent enough to believe that successes can be achieved without enduring hardships, this story will make it clear to him that the life of a man of God, a beautiful, pure and noble life, cannot be bought cheap. For what was there this man of God did not bring as an offering before God’s throne? His father: the light of his eyes, his beloved sons; recklessly brave comrades to whom he was more gracious than to his own offspring; all were offered up by him. He traveled to India’s far corners and to many a distant land. He spoke wisely, inaugurated patiently, received graciously, and observed acutely. After visiting Hungary and Yugoslavia he told the journalist Durga Das: “Those two societies are changing and winds of change are blowing. Nobody looks there any longer for doctrinaire, socialist solutions. But here we cling to slogans”. He tried to promote harmony. Indira Gandhi talked to and listened to him; so did Morarji Desai and others in the cabinet who would, after Zakir Husain’s death, fall out with Mrs.Gandhi. He saw self-centrednedd and desires to split, hurt or control. He could not cure what was wrong. But at least he played a part in delaying a break-up of Congress. Occasionally he passed on opposition points of view to a Prime Minister who had a will of her own. He liberally exercised the President’s powers to commute a death sentence into one for life. Rashtrapati Bhavan never lacked gardens; in Zakir Husain’s time they seemed prettier than ever. At a book fair he casually asked if the Maktaba Jamia – Jamia’s publication wing – had a stall. Delighted to be told that it did, he went to it. The books were plentiful and tastefully displayed; his eyes were moist once more. He was due for a routine check-up, in his room, on the morning of May 3, 1969. The doctors arrived. Excusing himself, he went to the bathroom. When he did not come out for some minutes, his servant Ishaq, who had looked after him ever since his heart attack twenty years earlier, knocked at the door; when there was no answer Ishaq hoisted himself and looked through a ventilator. India’s President lay huddled by the door. He was dead. Once, after the funeral they had attended together, Zakir Husain had said to Mujeeb: ‘If things are done as shabbily as this when I am being buried, I warn you that I shall get up and start shouting. He had not known then that he would die as President. Many of the world’s rulers came to the dignified, orderly funeral of Zakir Husain, who now rests within Jamia’s campus, a school to his east, a library to the west and a mosque to the north.
A Noble Human BeingThe normal human characteristic is that we forget the past when we march ahead. We assume false status and pride. We look down upon and forget our former friends and those who helped us when we were in difficulties. But Zakir Sab has shown the correct path and true human qualities in his life time. One specific case is illustrated here. Zakir Sab, had to struggle hand to mouth with his meagre and irregular salary. He had an equally understanding and devoted wife, Shahjehan Begum. Zakir Sab would not hesitate to plead before her that he wanted money. She had some share in her grand father’s estate and her grand share was just Rs. 10 per month. How could she either help her husband or manage by herself? But she was equally courageous. There was one bania by name Subba. The shop of Subba was not far from her house in Karolbagh. She used to get things on credit basis from this bania and clear the debt every month. This was a regular feature of the household management of Zakir Sab, the future President of India. What is more important and significant here is about the way in which the bania was treated when Zakir Hussain became the President of India. As President of India, Zakir Hussain did something to the bania which may not have any parallel in the world. He sent his car to fetch subba, the bania. Subba was surprised and must have thought of the invitation as a dream. No, it was a reality. Subba was brought to Rashtrapati Bhavan. What is still more significant and a lesson for all those who get elevated in life, but downgraded in gratitude is the memorable reception extended to Subba; the ordinary bania by the extraordinary first citizen of the country. As the car reached the portico, Zakir Hussain Sab, the President, became so emotional that he started coming down to the portico to receive the bania. It was really a strange behaviour not permissible for the President of India. His officers advised him not to go down to receive the bania. But the President was bent upon it. He said, ‘well, you now raise the bogey of protocol that the President of India has to observe. It could be true and relevant normally. But when we were struggling hand to mouth, it is this bania who saved us. Where is the question of protocol in such cases?’ Thus, he over-ruled the objections and received the bania, took him to his chamber and extended courtesy and hospitality. The bania must have rubbed his eyes several times and thanked almighty God. This simple instance demonstrated the heart and mind of Zakir Hussian Sab. It stresses on human values and dignity. The artificial gap between the rich and poor, high and low, is all man made to demonstrate pride and arrogance. But when we give up this type of negative cultural behaviour, we get sustainable mental comfort and earn the blessings of God. This is the message of Zakir Hussain for mankind in the true spirit of Islam. He had a strong will power and dedication to his duty. There are several instances to prove the point. One such instance is narrated here. He had a beautiful, affectionate, young daughter, Rehana. He was participating in a primary school function. He was distributing sweets to the boys who had passed a test in the primary school. A peon came and whispered to him that his three year old daughter, Rehana, was very sick. This did not stop his work. A little later the peon came again and told him that the child died. Even then he did not stop distribution of sweets. After the work was over, he went home to see the dead body. It is said that for several days after the death of his little daughter, his pillow was wet every morning, indicating thereby, his emotional feelings. When some one asked him why he did not leave the place as soon as he got the message about his daughter, he replied, “The children were feeling so happy, I did not like to interrupt it”. To say so requires an altogether different mental frame.

Zakir Hussain - An EducationistZakir Hussain, the third President of the Indian Republic, was born on 8 February 1897 in a Pathan family at Qaimganj in the District of Farrukhabad, Uttar Pradesh. His father, Fida Hussain was a lawyer. When Zakir was only ten years old his father died. Zakir Hussain was sent to the Islamia High School in Etawah. Later he joined the M.A.O. College at Aligarh. After B.A. with Honours, in 1918, he simultaneously joined for M.A. (Economics) and Law. Zakir was a young man of extraordinary intelligence and capabilities and had become Murshid to his admirers even when he was an undergraduate. His interest in literary and academic work was so keen that he translated Plato’s ‘Republic’ and Cannon’s ‘Elementary Political Economy’ into Urdu soon after joining the Jamia Millia in 1920. He was prominent among the students and very popular with a large section of the staff. He persuaded Hakim Ajmal Khan and other leaders to establish a national institution, and the Jamia Millia Islamia came into being on 29 October 1920. Zakir later went to the University of Berlin in Germany for higher studies in 1923 and did doctorate in Economics. He rejoined the Jamia Millia in February-March, 1926, and became the Shaikhu Jamia (Vice-Chancellor). It was at the Jamia Millia that Dr. Zakir Hussain developed his gifts as an educationist. In November 1948, Dr. Zakir Hussain was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University. He was also nominated a member of the Indian Universities Commission. The World University Service made him the Chairman of the Indian National Committee and in 1954 he was elected the World President of that organization. He was twice nominated as Member, Rajya Sabha, for his distinguished contributions in the field of literature, art and social service. He served as Governor of Bihar from 1957 to 1962. He was awarded Padma Vibushan in 1954 and Bharat Ratna in 1963. Zakir Hussain lent valuable support to start a parallel educational institution as the Mohammaden Oriental College. Thus emerged Jamia Millia Islamia, the National Muslim institution. This suited the liking of Zakir Hussain, a great patriot in the making. He was offered a Govt. job so that he would severe his links with the Jamia Millia. But his will power was so strong that nothing could change his mind. This approach is in contrast with that of many people who are prepared to cross the floor and do anything for the sake of money and power. Unlike the present day teachers who are mostly interested in improved salary and enhanced promotional opportunities and who have no emotional bondage to their colleges, students and Universities, Zakir Hussain had established primary relationship with Jamia Millia. His burning desire was to improve its status and enhance its glory. His salary was just Rs. 100/- a month. A Ph.D scholar from Germany was prepared for this meagre salary ! Infact, had he stayed back in Germany, he would have amassed huge wealth. But Zakir Sab was an entirely different type of person. His attachment to the Jamia was so strong that he was always prepared for any further sacrifice. Zakir Hussain had tremendous love for Urdu language as well as Sanskrit language. He praised the beauty and relevance of Urdu as the language of the masses. But whenever he used a few Sanskrit words in his formal Urdu speeches, some Muslims would not tolerate this. As the Governor of Bihar, he faced some unpleasantness. He used Sanskrit words whenever equivalent Urdu words were not available. Some Muslims in Bihar called this act as an act of betrayal. This narrow understanding of some Muslims is generally well known. As governor of Bihar he had to deal with both Muslims and Hindus and their language too. He was not representing Muslim community or language, but Indian culture as a whole. But rarely could the conservative Muslims understand this logic.

BiographyDr. Zakir Hussain was born on February 8, 1897 and died on May 3, 1969. DR. ZAKIR HUSSAIN was born at Hyderabad on February 8, 1897, he came of a Pathan family of the upper middle-class, settled at Qaunganj in the District of Farrukhabad, Uttar Pradesh. His father, Fida Hussain Khan, went to Hyderabad, studied Law and had a most successful career. Unfortunately, he died when Dr. Zakir Hussain was only ten years old. Dr. Zakir Hussain was sent first for his education to the Islamia High School in Etawah (U.P.) which specialised in puritanical strictures. After finishing school, he joined the M.A.O. College at Aligarh and studied upto the M.A. When the Indian National Congress and the All India Khilafat Committee joined hands in launching the Non-Cooperation Movement, Mahatma Gandhi toured the country to induce teachers and students to leave Government administered schools and colleges. The young Zakir Hussain, who was then half-student and half-teacher, very prominent among the students and very popular with a large section of the staff, persuaded Hakim Ajmal Khan and other leaders to establish a national institution at Aligarh, and the Jamia Millia Islamia came into being on 29 October, 1920. But Zakir Hussain did not wish to leave his studies incomplete and he went to the University of Berlin in Germany for higher studies in 1923, returning with a doctorate in Economics three years later. He rejoined the Jamia Millia in February-March, 1926 and became the Shaikhu Jamia (Vice-Chancellor). It was at the Jamia Millia that Dr. Zakir Hussain developed his gifts as an educationist. It was his experience here as well as his deep study of the philosophy of education which enable him to take charge of the scheme of Basic National Education when it was launched in 1938. He was the President of Hindustani Talimi Sangh, Sevagram from 1938 to 1948. In November 1948, Dr. Zakir Hussain was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University. He was also nominated a member of the Indian Universities Commission. The World University Service made him the Chairman of the Indian National Committee and in 1954 he was elected the World President of the organization. He was also nominated to the Rajya Sabha and made the Indian representative on the Executive Board of the UNESCO from 1956 to 1958. He remained the Chairman, Central Board of Secondary Education, till 1957, a member of the University Grants Commission till 1957, a member of the University Education Commission in 1948-1949 and of the Educational Reorganization Committee of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. In 1957 he was appointed the Governor of Bihar and in 1962 he was declared elected as the Head of the State and was formally sworn in as the Third President of the Indian Republic four days later. He held the highest office of the country with exemplary grace and dignity till his sudden death on 3 May, 1969. Dr. Zakir Hussain was awarded Padma Vibhushan in 1954 and Bharat Ratna in 1963. He was awarded D.Litt. (Honoris Causa) by the Universities of Delhi, Calcutta, Aligarh, Allahabad and Cairo. Many demands were made on Dr. Zakir Hussain's time and he was not able to undertake many scholarly projects which he had in mind. His interest in literary and academic work was so keen that he translated Plato's 'Republic' and Cannon's 'Elementary Political Economy'into Urdu soon after joining the Jamia Millia in 1920. While in Germany, he got an edition of the 'Diwan-I-Ghalib' printed - doing much of the composition himself, because the press did not have enough staff - and also brought out a book in German on Mahatma Gandhi (Die Botschaft des Mahatma Gandhi'). He delivered a series of lectures on economics under the auspices of the Hindustani Academy and another series in English, on Capitalism: Essays in Understanding, under the auspices of the Delhi University in 1945. He also translated Friedrich List's 'Nationalockonomic'. His Convocation Addresses have been collected and published under the title "The Dynamic University". But he excelled in writing for children and his stories are masterpieces of style. Tall, well-built, fair in complexion, with a noble forehead, a sensitive aristocratic nose, a well-trimmed beard and always neatly and tastefully dressed in sherwani and pyjama, Dr. Zakir Hussain was an imposing embodiment of culture and refinement. He was sensitive to beauty in all its forms and had an intense passion for excellence. His varied tastes and hobbies, his love of roses, his collection of cacti, fossils, paintings and specimens of calligraphy, objets d'art, and curios and above all, his rich library are evidence of his versatile personality. He was steeped in the spiritual and aesthetic culture and the ethical principles of the Muslim Sufis and poets. He had the sufi's indifference towards the externals of religion and, though a deeply religious man, his religiosity was never obvious. It was the inspiration for secularism by which he endeared himself to men of different religious communities. Dr. Zakir Hussain's nationalism was, like Gandhiji's, a reflection of his allegiance to the highest moral values and to the ideals of a culture which had become the whole of his own self. It was a nationalism which demanded for the individual that freedom which is the essence of democracy, that self-discipline which is the foundation of democratic citizenship and that identification with the good of the society which gives substance and meaning to the life of the individual.