Admirers bemoan loss of professor Assadi, VC who wasn’t

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Late political scientist professor Muzaffar Assadi, who passed away on January 3 in a hospital in Bengaluru, was reminisced about as someone who fought for representation of Muslims and other marginalised groups but was deprived of it. Assadi, aged 63, had undergone heart surgery on January 2 and was undergoing treatment for heart disease for several months. He held positions such as acting Vice Chancellor (VC) of Mysore University. Originally from Shirva village in Udupi district, he was also a writer who authored English and Kannada books and had bagged the Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award in 2011.

His well-known works include Politics of Peasant Movement in Karnataka and Colonial and Post-Colonial Identity Politics in South Asia. However, he never got the chance to be the VC of a university full-time, a fact Assadi himself bemoaned. His name had come up for consideration for the full-time VC of Mysore University, where he taught political science but it didn’t come to pass. This was acknowledged by his old associates at the memorial programme Professor Muzaffar Assadi: In Loving Memory held at the Salar Auditorium in Bengaluru on Friday.

To demonstrate this, an old clip of Assadi was played at the end of the event, where he said: “BM Mohiuddin (late Congressman), who was 81 at the time, went to (then) Chief Minister (Siddaramaiah) and recommended my name (for VC of Mysore University). I asked him what happened and he said he suggested my name twice but to no avail. This isn’t my story alone. We have lost many opportunities. Why are we in this condition?”

Unfulfilled aspiration: Senior journalist Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed from Frontline Magazine bemoaned Assadi not landing the VC’s job. “There was this information circulating in the previous (BJP) government that he would be made the Vice Chancellor of Mysore University initially. This was denied to him. Then his name was discussed in the context of lower rung universities before he was sent off as a special officer to Raichur University.

In that role, he set up the university. Being appointed as the special officer meant that he would automatically become the Vice Chancellor but even that was denied,” Vikhar said. Professor from Al Ameen Degree College Shakira Khanum echoed these sentiments. “His elevation to the post of VC was scuttled by some. His deprivation of the VC’s post was not just an insult to him but to our whole community. It is rare for such a scholarly man to emerge from a minority community,” she said, adding that he was fiercely compassionate toward women.