[Reader-list] Jamia University's right to provide Legal aid:

[radhikarajen at vsnl.net]

Now all institutions of the nation will have separate funds for providing "legal aid" to each caste students, each faith students whenever they are accused of breaking the law, very secular idea. !
Regards.

----- Original Message -----
From: Tapas Ray <tapasrayx at gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, September 25, 2008 6:20 pm
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Jamia University's right to provide Legal aid:
To: reader-list at sarai.net

> apologies if someone else has already addressed this factor. i 
> sent this 
> message to a member offlist but then felt that it might be useful 
> for 
> others to consider the point too, for whatever it is worth.
> 
> i should mention that i have enormous regard for prof. hasan.
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> apologies for writing offlist, which i am doing in order not to 
> get 
> drawn into a protracted debate.
> 
> i am not comfortable with the idea of the university qua 
> university 
> providing aid to the arrested students. this may set a precedent 
> which 
> students will cite to ask for their university's aid in other 
> cases of 
> legal difficulty, and not only in jamia. judging the merits of 
> these 
> claims will be difficult and, more likely than not, decisions will 
> be 
> controversial.
> 
> i think it would have been better if students, teachers, and other 
> staff 
> - not only in jamia but also in other institutions - were to set 
> up an 
> aid fund for the arrested students.
> 
> of course, this is my personal view. i may be wrong.
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> Radhakrishnan wrote:
> > On Communal profiling and Jamia University's right to provide 
> Legal aid:
> > 
> > Mushir Ul Hasan has done what any responsible head of an 
> institution would have done under similar circumstances, or is it 
> that some of our sarai contributors are wiling to provide legal 
> aid or that the state should come with a defense team. Perhaps we 
> are indulging in a trial through Internet. 
> > 
> > Is he supposed to be a mute spectator and relinquish his role as 
> a guardian of all students, and moreover why are we hell bent on 
> arriving towards the conclusion even when the matter is subjudice, 
> or is that someone among us is privy to the copy of final judgment 
> convicting the two accused? 
> > 
> > Prof. Hasan has impeccable credentials and it’s rather very 
> unjust to expect him to scream from rooftop about his unequivocal 
> opposition to terrorism of all hue. 
> > 
> > Srirang jha states that since the University exists for 
> education and nothing else and that our constitution provides for 
> legal assistance to any one who cannot afford a lawyer. Hence 
> arrested students of JMI who are arrested for their alleged role 
> in the Blast may get legal assistance from the Legal Aid Cell and 
> that intellectual like Mushirul Hasan need not indulge in such a 
> pastime as this

. Calls for more sensitivity
..when the 
> University is under scanner for wrong reasons and that too with 
> the heightened fears about profiling on religious lines as has 
> been the case in Manipal in Karnataka. The two accused have no 
> history of crime. Should any institution simply disown its 
> students after their arrest on similar grounds? Is it not a sign 
> of democracy to even assure the accused of a fair trial!
> > 
> > Secondly arguments about seeking Jamia’s social intervention in 
> its neighbourhood are rather a fashion statement and that too at 
> an inopportune moment. Instead the government of the day could be 
> requested for such interventions, universities certainly do their 
> best in terms of field research, public policy analysis, health 
> and educational campaigns but they don’t constitute its core 
> activity
such examples are found in other places too, like JNU or 
> Delhi University but to expect some comprehensive changes in 
> places near the universities is something which falls in the socio-
> economic-political domain and a matter concerning day to day 
> governance. 
> > 
> > Radhakrishnan
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