“I felt terrible, they were maligning us right in front of us, sitting outside our campus. I was shocked that government teachers were doing this and the district magistrate had set up the camp while we are still a functioning university,” Zaheeruddin lamented. 

Arguing that the counselling camp amounted to contempt of court, he mentioned that the administration wrote to the Rampur DM citing a 2019 high court stay order that specifically ordered that students and staff of the university must not be harassed. The camp was removed after two days, on July 18 evening.

When Alt News visited the campus, the students, now thrust into indefinite anxiety over their futures, were sitting in protest in front of the main gate, demanding that the RDA withdraw the demolition. “We have been protesting since July 18 because RDA should withdraw this order. There are 3,000-4,000 students studying here; don’t snatch the pen from their hands,” said a 5th-year student from Panipat, Haryana.

Students echoed the administration’s account on the ‘pattern’ of state action which haunted their campus. Every year during admissions, they said, new action or rumours would surface, discouraging parents and prospective students. “Every year, fear is planted in children’s hearts that the university will be shut down,” said another student. Barely 200 kilometres from Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, where students and youth of the country came together in thousands to demand educational reform in India, a notice was served on a university, declaring that most of its built structures were illegal and would soon be demolished.

The institute, Mohammad Ali Jauhar University (MAJU), located in Rampur, Uttar Pradesh, was established in 2006 by the Mohammad Ali Jauhar Trust, founded by Azam Khan, one of the founding members of the Samajwadi Party. Khan, a former MP and 10-time MLA from Rampur, was one of the most powerful politicians in the region until the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2017.

MAJU is recognised by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and holds minority institution status. However, its staff and student body comprise people from varied backgrounds and religious communities, vice-chancellor (VC) Prof Zaheeruddin and students themselves told Alt News.

The university is named after Mohammad Ali Jauhar, a freedom fighter, Khilafat leader and former Congress president, who founded Jamia Millia Islamia in 1920.

On July 15, the Rampur Development Authority (RDA) issued a notice to the university declaring that 38 of its 40 buildings were illegal and would be demolished within 20 days. The university was told to carry out the demolition itself, failing which, the RDA would carry out the demolition while charging the university expenses. However, the demolition order was stayed on July 28 by the chairman of RDA and the Moradabad divisional commissioner, Aunjaney Kumar Singh, till August 10.

Only a day after the notice, on July 16, a ‘counselling camp’ was set up outside the university’s main gate, the VC said. On the same day, the UP Public Works Department (PWD) declared an internal campus road as a public road while installing signage, he alleged. 

On July 27, Alt News visited the 475-acre campus on the first day of the semester. The buildings — designed, according to the VC, in the image of the White House and Turkish mosques — looked grand but lifeless as several structures stood half-built with construction abandoned midway. An air of uncertainty loomed over the campus and on the faces of the very few students who were present.

Some students, who were protesting the demolition, told Alt News that a student delegation had met the DM and sought written assurance that the buildings would not be demolished until the matter was decided by the Supreme Court. The DM gave only a verbal assurance and declined........

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