NSUI Prez Fairoz Khan on 2019, Autonomy & Being a Muslim Leader

NSUI President Fairoz Khan spoke to The Quint on the sidelines of the Youth Leaders Summit at the Aligarh Muslim University. Just days after addressing the Congress Plenary in Delhi, Khan says the youth int he country will need to draw a line on what it deems as secular and vote accordingly.

Here are excerpts from the conversation.

How is the NSUI doing things differently as 2019 approaches, from what it was doing in 2014?

First of all the NSUI, as a responsible student organisation, is focusing on taking on board all the other student organisations who are not radical, who are not extreme. 90% of the student union elections won by NSUI are backed by NSUI student organisations. We have organised a program in which 30 student organisations participated. Soon, we will hold a two-day Youth Leaders Meet of all the student union leaders of the country. We are fighting for student courts, student rights commissions, unemployment, unemployment allowances and many other issues on the national level like freedom of speech, freedom of expression, interference of administration and government in university campuses – that has become a day to day thing – and scams… I think students are losing faith in the government machinery.

On the broader level, for 2019, we will be going to the students and telling them the truth. We will go to the youth, this is what they promised, and this is what they delivered. Now, you choose between right and wrong.

The government is moving towards granting autonomy to several leading universities. Where do you stand on the matter?

It’s very clear. They only want education for few. Where will the universities get money? From the students. NSUI has a clear stand. Yesterday when JNUSU marched, NSUI was in front. Several NSUI activists got arrested. On the broader level, we will fight against this move towards privatisation of education. Where will colleges and universities get money? Where is the source?

But you belong to and speak for a party that introduced privatisation in our country.

At the time, that seemed to be necessary. But as per their (BJP) ideology, its ‘education for few’. We have a young population, 50% are below the age of 25. We believe that education is for all and this is our fundamental right. Even the Congress party believes that. We should not go against that. We actually want to compete with international universities like Cambridge and Harvard and actually raise the standard. If we found something wrong, we backed out.

UPA chairperson, Sonia Gandhi has been criticised for saying that the BJP wants to portray the Congress as a ‘Muslim-only’ party. Certain columnists have written that with that statement, she has abandoned the Muslim population of the country. Do you think that’s a deliberate move by the party to project itself in a certain way as it fights a ‘nationalist’ BJP?

First of all, is the BJP really a nationalist party? That’s a big question. If you have a national president of the NSUI in Fairoz Khan, that too a Kashmiri, speaking (at the Plenary) – There’s nothing unique about it (in the Congress party). Obviously, the BJP is trying to communalise the country, they are trying to run away from issues like unemployment, the Rs 15 lakh, acche din, all false promises – so obviously Sonia ji is worried about that.

Before Independence we had Maulana Azad, who for seventeen years, was the president of the All India Congress committee. Even today, you have thousands of Muslim leaders. If you believe in an ideology in which you think you can survive and where you think you can do your job and serve the people – it doesn’t matter which party you are in. There are Muslims in the BJP too!

A renowned historian recently equated the ‘trishul’ to the ‘topi’. At the Youth Leader’s Summit (in Aligarh) you said that the Muslim community needs to come together and vote together. That was the essence of one of the many things you said. As a youth leader, is that something the young people of India need today? Or do you think that’s needed to simply win an election?

I strongly believe that winnability is only one of the things for a political party. I also said at the INC Session that winnability matters, but its only one aspect (of politics). If you wear a ‘topi’, you have a beard, you’re Muslim, what’s wrong with that? Be proud. But when someone like Rocky Tuseed(DUSU President) wears a topi, he’s secular. Fairoz Khan can also also wear a tikka and do aarti – that’s part of our culture. That’s what I was trying to say. But you can’t have Rahul Gandhi in the day, the most secular leader of the country in the day and then in the evening, you pick Yogi Adityanath and Owaisi and all these extremist leaders. Now the youth of this country has to draw a line. Where do we stand? Why are we afraid to be Muslim? What’s wrong in that? I’m a proud Muslim, proud Indian, proud Kashmiri. The youth need to know where they stand. If they understand the reality, then they will vote for Congress.