Before Night Falls

What is more embarrassing for AMU— gay love or violation of human rights?

NISHA SUSAN

Illustration: UZMA MOHSIN

WHEN SECTION 377 of the Indian Penal Code was read down last year, decriminalising homosexuallity in India, confetti flew. Even those who felt the law had little relevance in the daily lives of the LGBT community in India smiled a bit. Less than a year later, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) professor Shrinivas Ramachandra Siras, a Marathi scholar, has been suspended for alleged homosexual activity. The university says they have a video recording of the professor inside his home in sexual intercourse with a young rickshaw-puller. The university, clearly not a fan of that ancient sexual preference — ‘rough trade’ — termed this gross misconduct, taking care to emphasise the occupation of the professor’s alleged lover. Outrage against AMU has flown thick but the university is unembarrassed.

The video recording is suitably shrouded in mystery but AMU’s spokesperson confirms usefully, ‘the video clips are really indecent’. If it came from local reporters, as the first rumour had it, where did these reporters spring from? More than one report says that the video recording was a ‘sting’ paid for by the University. AMU’s statement is that the recording accompanied an anonymous complaint. So far, Siras does not seem to have engaged any legal counsel. Activists are in a rage, but there is no case without Siras. The 64-year-old Siras has chosen to resign and leave Aligarh for hometown Nagpur rather than combat the university. He is on the verge of retirement, after 22 years in AMU.

Vice-chancellor (VC) Abdul Aziz seems to not know that between February 8 and 10, AMU, a government institution, has violated pretty much every fundamental right you can lay your hands upon. He continues to issue statements — no one wants their child to be gay; AMU is an institution of international repute and its students go out with character.

AMU was also in the news this week when it proudly signed a Memorandum of Understanding with George Washington University (GWU) Law School — presumably neither party worried too much about GWU’s stated policy that it will not discriminate against employees or students for sexual orientation. Because, an international reputation for AMU does not stretch that far. Homosexuality is not good for students, the VC explains with a logic as eminently reasonable as one advising against junk food or videogames. In such morally ambiguous times as ours, it must be a source of comfort to be Abdul Aziz.

The VC, who has a PhD in Marine Biology from the University of Kerala, is a very big fish, even by his own estimation. His list of achievements reads like the opening line of Snoopy’s novel: ‘It was a dark and stormy night’. His online resume says ‘he took charge at a time when the University was passing through one of the darkest periods in its history, dotted by murders of two students in quick succession, violent clashes between student groups, looting and destruction of property, regional fighting and constant disruption of academic activities. There was complete breakdown of rule of law and everyone was under constant threat of assault and humiliation. With firm and well-thought-out initiatives, the University has been brought back to normal level of functioning in the last two years.’ After which, presumably, the angels sang hosannas but the resume does not state that.

The hero of the JM Coetzee’s novel Disgrace, David Lurie, an English professor, is dismissed from his university job when he seduces a student. He makes no attempt to defend himself and goes off into the hinterlands of post-apartheid South Africa where he is broken bit by bit. Coetzee’s infuriatingly fatalistic hero says at some point, “One gets used to things getting harder; one ceases to be surprised that what used to be as hard as hard can be grows harder yet.”