On the Ritual called AMU Hall Magazines

I hate Hall magazines in Aligarh! Well, most of them.

Surprised? Agitated? I won’t grudge it if you are.

In the spirit of democracy and my inalienable right to express myself, allow me to explain.

I have been following campus magazines in Aligarh ever since I joined as a wooly-eyed teenager in 1993. For various reasons. My love for writing was one, and a general interest in creative endeavours was always there. But a desire to explore the contours of the famous ‘Alig culture’ was the most important reason. And it still is.

Why would I look forward to the magazines every year?

I expected to be introduced to the history of the so-called Aligarh movement, its major protagonists, its limitations and of course, successes. I expected to be guided through the hallowed Aligarh Hall of Fame and be impressed by the distinguished line-up of its alumni. I hoped to read on Aligarh’s ‘contemporary history’ and gain some perspective on the place the university enjoyed in the larger universe of Muslim/minority politics and aspiration. I expected critical writings on the debates and issues within the Muslim/minority question – both national and global.

In fact, I would have been contented had they only contained good Urdu poetry!

In short, I expected interventions – intelligent, informed and insightful, as is natural to expect from a community that indulges in knowledge production and distribution.

But what would I rather get? Well, as I said, most of the times.

I will get the uncritical display of a ritual. The ritual of inviting contributions, of processing them and then putting them together, of publishing them through official funding, and finally, of archiving them – more as some sort of trophies than as dynamic pieces of writing intended to provoke discussions and debates.

It is this fixation with ritual that has been the hallmark of most of Aligarh’s activities. But I am going to limit myself to the Hall magazines and the frequent intellectual apathy they suffer from.

Let me explain the ritual. Open any of the more than a dozen Hall magazines published every year in Aligarh. You will inevitably find a picture of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan staring at you. The same portrait found everywhere on the campus, with an almost divine aura. Then you have the Vice-Chancellor’s portrait, followed by the Editor’s and then the Editorial team with the Provost of the Hall. 

I am yet to see a Hall magazine that dares to break this yawn-inducing and predictable pattern… or an editor who refuses to abide by the ritual.

Go to the contents now. Count the number of times you find Sir Syed there. Not that there is anything wrong in writing on Sir Syed. But it is precisely at such moments of tribute that the process of writing turns into a ritual. Fixation is contagious, and symptomatic of the inward-looking behaviour that Aligarh frequently demonstrates.

Look at the contents carefully. Essays on Sir Syed as a scientist, a journalist, or an architect! It’s amazing to see the different ways the Aligarh community has reinvented its founder, often stretching the eulogy to unreasonable and unfounded theories about his life and work.

In fact, I have a simple thumb rule for it. If the number of writings on Sir Syed exceeds those on other topics, close the magazine.

It is not only the Aligarh fixation with Sir Syed that is a problem here. The content is severely compromised because of a fixation with form. The magazines do not even pretend to engage intellectually. You often find engineering students blabbering on the latest on thermodynamics, or Unani medicine students on the benefits of neem leaves.

When writing becomes a ritual, banality creeps in. 

In Aligarh, it’s almost impossible to differentiate between two Hall magazines. That explains why most of them go unread. The ritual lies in collecting them (since you paid for them in your hall dues), but not in engaging with them.

So what is missing? My contention is simple. Hall magazines can – and should – be an exercise in critical intervention and thought. Rather than coming across as dull, boring pieces of literature, they should rather be dynamic enough to provoke discussions, encourage debates, probe the stereotypes, challenge the dominant, and question the present. They should be annual chronicles of political, social, educational and cultural churning that the university went through in the past year. They should live and breathe.

And of course, they should be an exercise in creativity. Not passivity. In short, they should be the barometers of what can be called the Aligarh life.

Anybody listening (or rather, reading)?

I hope somebody does.