A major controversy erupted after Khursheed Alam (Lal Babu), an Assistant Professor at Jay Prakash University (JPU) in Bihar’s Chhapra made anti-national posts on Facebook demanding a ‘separate’ nation for Indian Muslims by adjoining Pakistan and Bangladesh. Meanwhile, Akhil Bhartiya Vidhyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has registered a strong protest against Khursheed Alam’s controversial Facebook posts.
ABVP members have submitted a memorandum to the Vice Chancellor Professor Ranjit Kumar of Narayan College Goriyakothi, Siwan, a unit of JPU seeking his dismissal.
ABVP activists have demanded the formation of an investigation committee and the filing of a case against Professor Khursheed Alam. State University Work Co-Head Rajnikant Singh, University Convenor Prashant Singh, University Research Head Himanshu Kumar, and Prabhakar Kumar were among those who handed over the memorandum. BJYM state regional in-charge Rajiv Tiwari, on the other hand, demanded action from the university in this matter and stated that the students will protest until appropriate action is taken. Meanwhile, the varsity authorities have issued a show-cause notice to Professor Khursheed Alam.
OpIndia checked the Facebook profile of the accused professor and found numerous anti-national posts instigating Indian Muslims to seek a separate ‘homeland’.
On Tuesday (2nd January), Khursheed Alam alias Lal Babu wrote on Facebook appealing to the governments of neighbouring Islamic countries Bangladesh and Pakistan that Indian Muslims want a separate nation for themselves as he wrote, “I am appealing both the governments that the Indian Muslims want a separate homeland adjoining Pakistan and Bangladesh.”
In another post, Alam claimed that Hindu nationalists are ‘justifying the two-nation theory as he wrote, “The Hindu nationalists are justifying the two-nation theory, therefore the much-publicized communal questions needed to be resolved first.”
It is worth mentioning here that the Two Nation Theory was first touted by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, the founder of the Aligarh Muslim University. Khan had in 1876 said that he was convinced that Hindus and Muslims could never be one nation owing to the distinctiveness of their way of living and religion. Years later, in 1888, Khan asserted that if the British left India with all their canons and weapons, who would rule this country he argued that both Hindus and Muslims could not sit on the same throne, adding that one must conquer the other.
In other Facebook posts, Khursheed Alam expressed his respect for the national anthems of Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Another post by the JPU university professor reads, “India is harassing the Muslim minorities, the right to dissent is completely violated by the government.”
On 19th December last year, Professor Alam wrote, “The Hindu Rights have demolished the entire idea of secularism, the time has come that the Muslims must demand a separate homeland adjoining Pak and Bangladesh.”
In a 29th September 2023 post, Khursheed Alam wrote, “Long live Pakistan” and demanded the “right to dissent and self-determination”.
In another outrageous post, Alam lamented that Indian Muslims have been languishing in jails for years under UAPA and other stringent provisions. He also expressed his disdain for Brahmins as he accused the Bhartiya Janata Party and even Congress of being “Brahminical parties”.
In his above-mentioned and other posts, the JPU professor has repeatedly claimed that the Indian government has failed to uphold the right to dissent of religious ‘minorities’, specifically Muslims. Contrary to his assertion, Indian Muslims have a greater right to dissent in India than even in Islamic countries. While the professor laments the fact that a significant number (30%) of people in Indian jails are Muslims, he overlooks the fact that people are imprisoned for the crime they committed, not their religion.
Notably, Indian jails have four types of prisoners: convicts (those found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court), undertrials (those currently on trial in a court of law), detainees (those lawfully detained), and those who do not fit into any of these three categories and make up a small proportion of the total number of prisoners. Instead of encouraging community-wide introspection, the communist ‘professor’ is peddling fissiparous propaganda and inciting his co-religionists to seek a separate nation.