IIUI Lost its Chancellor!

With the resignation of President Musharraf from his office, IIUI has also lost its chancellor. His resignation immediately reminds the days which IIUI has experienced during his tenure in office. He was not merely an iconic chancellor of IIUI as he had been actively involved in many important policy decision affecting the role and direction of IIUI. Immediately after seizing power in 1999, General Musharraf was keen to set up a cabinet which could help him resolve governance problems in Pakistan in the context of legitimacy deficit which he was facing at the very outset. In the beginning he successfully co-opted many leading technocrats to form his first cabinet as a chief Executive. Among the co-opted slot, IIUI offered its "best" brain at that time and Dr. Mahmood Ahmad Ghazi (then Vice President, Academics IIUI) was administered oath as Minister for Religious Affairs. When the Chief Executive of Pakistan metamorphosed into the President of Pakistan through a dubious referendum, Dr. Ghazi was picked up as a blue eyed member of newly established National Security Council and he served Musharraf regime for some good time during his absolute dictatorship regime. Later Dr. Ghazi was first removed from the National Security Council and finally he also resigned from the Cabinet. Unlike many early days colleagues and aides of General Mushrraf, Dr. Ghazi never dare to speak publically about his differences, if any, with President Musharraf. Dr. Ghazi did not even bother to perform "sajda e sahev" for what he had done by cooperating with a dictator and instead he started teaching Constitutional Law at IIUI immediately after completing dictator's job. Those who used to walk around the corridors of IIUI old campus during those days must have witnessed the following scene regularly:

During early days of Dr. Ghazi's ministerial responsibilities, Dr. Hasan Abdul Latif Shafi was the President of IIUI. Dr. Ghazi was obviously quite busy in advising Musharraf about a bunch of critical and strategic matters ranging from Madarsah reforms to proposed constitutional amendments and it was really difficult for him to spare quality time for his IIUI job. He was Vice President Academic but he hardly had any time to attend his office before 2 o clock and people had often seen Dr. Shafi, the President, rushing to Dr. Ghazi's office immediately after he reached IIUI from Ministry of Religious Affairs. Dr. Shafi would be holding several files and documents during each of such meetings to get them endorsed by his Vice President!! However, later situation changed and Dr. Ghazi resigned from the Ministry and joined IIUI as a full time employee. He was perhaps so touched and mesmerized with the personality of Musharraf that in his meetings with faculty and staff, he was frequently citing the quotes of general!

Time changed and Dr. Ghazi became President of IIUI-thanks to Musharraf, Rafiq Tarar and Justice Khalil ur Rehman! By then Jusrtice Khalil was also sent home from the Supreme Court and with the courtesy of his old friend in the President House, Justice (Retired) Muhammad Rafiq Tarar, he managed to secure the position of Rector, IIUI. To cut the long story short, we don't want to discuss the Ghazi-Khalil era of IIUI administration here.

Time changed once again and this time tide was against Dr. Ghazi and Justice Khalil. Both of them were replaced with Dr. Anwar Siddiqui and Dr. Manzoor Ahmad and this time Chancellor was active with an agenda of modernization and enlightened moderation. For the very first time in the history of IIUI, both the Rector and President were appointed from a background totally irrelevant with the core faculties of IIUI (Usuluddin, Shariah & Law and Arabic). The Chancellor's push for an "enlightened" and "modern" IIUI was not a hidden agenda and he was occasionally expressing his views about it. In a speech at Islamabad based Institute of Strategic Studies, he proudly mentioned his achievements on this front by pointing to the new administration of IIUI. Rest of the story is simple and straightforward and it is very much before us. Starting from the change in the name of Faculty of Usuluddin to recent shuffling up within the university clearly manifest the strategic agenda which Dr. Manzoor and his team are attempting to pursue here. In between, you can see and cite the incidence like Tony Blair's visit to IIUI and the notorious azan fiasco in Faisal Mosque! The establishment of Iqbal International Institute first in Lahore and then its transfer to IIUI and the dubious Ismaeli influence on it is yet another sad chapter of this story.

Once again time has changed but this time for the Chancellor! We wonder that would there be a positive change for IIUI too or not? We believe that there can be but it needs the emergence of indigenous agenda within the IIUI and that is only possible through a bottom-up approach. We have seen that the imposition of top-down agenda fails mainly because of lack of ownership and understanding.