Al-Falah University -Our leaders foolish or compromised or both ?

Poonam Sharma
After the Red Fort blast, Al-Falah University in Faridabad—located next to Delhi—suddenly came under major discussion. The owners and professors of this university have now come under scrutiny, and new revelations about its students are surfacing one after another. Most people living in Delhi had not even heard the name of this university before this terror incident. Al-Falah means “success” or “progress,” but today the reality is something entirely different. In the Scriptures, the word al-falah is linked with “akhira”—the afterlife. And the “success” these students and professors were seeking was by plotting a terror attack that could have killed thousands. With this, the name of this madrasa-style university has become infamous.

Real question

The real question is: who are these people in India who help establish such institutions that may become a serious future threat to the country? Especially when India already has institutions like AMU, Jamia, Hamdard, and countless madrasas, where the curriculum is not exactly a secret.

The Al-Falah University sprawls over 718 acres in the Dhauj village, Faridabad. The site comes under the protected Aravalli hill zone where environmental laws are very strict. Even the smallest construction requires clearances from so many authorities, and global environmental bodies rush to raise objections. But somehow, none of that “environmental concern” appeared here—thanks to the special “religious attitude” involved.

When Al-Falah University was established in 2014, Haryana was under the Bhupinder Singh Hooda government. The owner of the university – Javed Siddiqui – was accused in economic scams worth crores. Yet the university received its license. For ordinary citizens, even a small police case can hold up a passport, but in 2015 this university easily got UGC recognition when Smriti Irani was the HRD Minister.

Shockingly, in 2019, the Haryana Medical Education Department gave Al-Falah permission to start MBBS courses—despite its background. The Chief Minister then was BJP leader and RSS pracharak Manohar Lal Khattar. Of course, one doesn’t expect more from Congress, but this madrasa-type hub flourished during the tenure of BJP too. Why didn’t Manohar Lal Khattar anticipate the potential dangers that such an institution could pose—considering the people behind it and their background? The fact is: lack of vigilance is India’s biggest weakness.

Take another example. In Jammu, at the Mata Vaishno Devi Medical College, run wholly with offerings from Hindu devotees, 42 out of 50 seats were given to Muslim students. Did Governor Manoj Sinha not even once question how students unrelated to the shrine’s community got the majority of admissions? Wasn’t he, as head of the Vaishno Devi Shrine Board, supposed to ensure that the devotees’ offerings were not misused?

We need friends and leaders whose faces show age, wisdom, and experience, not those driven by fear or political optics.

SHUATS: From Missionary College to a Conversion Hub

Consider SHUATS University in Prayagraj, till recently known as A.D. College, which was run by Christian missionaries. In 1998, when BJP’s M.M. Joshi became HRD Minister, one of his very first decisions was to give it the status of a deemed university-because he was personally close to its director, Rajendra B. Lal. Even then, evangelical activities were being carried out with impunity in the name of education. Since receiving university status, SHUATS has become one of the largest conversion hubs in rural Uttar Pradesh.

Faith-Healing Under the Guise of Science

Healing assemblies are conducted there under the cover of modern science education. The vice-chancellor, Rajendra Lal, claims to “heal” people through divine intervention. During COVID, he claimed he could scold the virus away and send it “back to hell in Jesus’s name.” This man faces serious criminal charges, including murder and forced conversion. Yogi Adityanath tried to crack down-but the Supreme Court shielded him. What M.M. Joshi once nurtured has now grown into a dangerous monster silently consuming the poor.

Shia-Sunni Peace Efforts That Backfired

There was a time when Shia-Sunni clashes regularly broke out during Muharram in Uttar Pradesh. When Atal Bihari Vajpayee became Prime Minister, he tried to effect peace by bringing both factions together. He meant well—but now both groups, once sworn enemies of each other, share a common hatred against Hindus.

Akhilesh Yadav, Raghubar Das and the Politics of Haj Houses

As Chief Minister of UP, Akhilesh Yadav constructed a sprawling Haj House in Ghaziabad. BJP protested against this with great fanfare. But roughly about the same period, Jharkhand CM Raghubar Das, a BJP leader, constructed a Haj House in his state. BJP accused Akhilesh of using Hindu taxpayers’ money for minorities. Yet Raghubar Das spent crores doing precisely the same thing-proving hypocrisy is not the monopoly of a single party.

Al-Falah University and the Blast That Almost Happened

The explosive device prepared by Al-Falah University’s professors and students could have caused unimaginable destruction. Security agencies thwarted it, but the question remains—why did Manohar Lal Khattar never act against the rising influence of radical clerics and imams in Haryana? He even began the practice of paying imams from the state treasury. When Kejriwal did the same in Delhi, BJP protested—yet Haryana BJP quietly implemented the same policy.

Slogans of “Modi gives gifts to Muslims” reverberated in 2014 when lakhs were given financial benefits. The return gift was an abusive slur directed at the Prime Minister’s mother. Yet BJP continues appeasement. If BJP’s social media claims are true, then while under Congress only 4.5 percent of government jobs went to Muslims, BJP increased that to 10.5 percent. Some schemes offer loans as large as ₹20 lakh only to members of the community.

The leaders are either foolish or compromised. The foolish ones run after labels like “secular,” willing to do anything for respectability, no matter how extreme. The compromised ones are simply bought. You decide which category the names mentioned here fall into. What can society do amidst this leadership vacuum? We must continue to apply pressure, raise our voices, and express opposition-clearly and peacefully. Politicians care about only vote banks; they must understand society is aware. If one meeting of Gandhiji could be remembered for decades, why not the myriad events happening today?