Very few studies in the realm of Indian higher education have exclusively focused on Muslim students. Beyond their numbers and presence, what do Muslim students think, imagine and aspire to? How do the broader political landscape, financial insecurity, the uncertain and tense atmosphere, and the ever-changing educational system affect their access and experience of campuses? How has the idea of the university envisioned, included or excluded the most marginalized of students, including Muslims, who, as established by the Sachar Committee, have rapidly entered higher education in the post-Mandal period but yet remain far behind?
The paper draws upon field work done in AMU and JNU from 2022-2023 in the pandemic years and immediately after when universities slowly began to re-open to students – in order to answer these questions. Relying on unique testimonies and discussions, as well archival data on the contemporary histories of both universities, the paper examines how Muslims exist differently in two diametrically different universities: one a minority institution with a very long history, and the second, a far younger university with a very different student body as well as political outlook.
How do Muslim students engage with the world immediately around them – that of the public university – and the world beyond it; how does the discourse of Islamophobia circulate, how do Muslim students perceive discrimination? All of these debates are pertinent to understanding the disaggregated, heterogenous, yet linked ‘Muslim experience’ in public higher education. The disintegrating structure of public, affordable and equitable higher education is also addressed in the paper, and how this phenomenon intersects with the experiences of marginality and adds to the existing vulnerability.
Finally, the paper engages with the broader debates around the ‘idea of the (public) university’ as they have emerged in contemporary literature and examines its absences and gaps.
