Aligarh, Nov 19: At the campus of Aligarh Muslim University, a map of India minus the state of Jammu and Kashmir was displayed on a banner. The incident sparked off a controversy, with the university defending the drawing of the erroneous map as a mistake committed inadvertently by the drama society for an anti-partition drama which was supposed to take place at the university.
“The poster was made by the drama society for an anti-partition drama. As soon as the teacher-in-charge got the information, the university took action. We pulled down the posters and postponed the drama,” AMU PRO Shafey Kidwai said.
The university further said that the banners have nothing to do with the politics of the country. However, the banners have been pulled down ever since the controversy erupted. As per reports, the skewed maps were also put up on the main gate of the university.
The posters were also doing rounds in the entire university campus. As per reports, the map of India in the poster included parts of Pakistan while the region of Jammu and Kashmir was also depicted wrongly. The PRO of AMU claimed that the drama which was supposed to take place was based on Asghar Wajahat’s ‘Jis Lahore Nai Dekhya… O Jamya Nai’.
The play was written in 1989 and the drama is about the brutal Partition of India that created Pakistan. It is purportedly against communalism. The drama was to be staged at the university. The posters were prepared by the society and when the teacher was informed of the error in the posters, they were taken down,” AMU PRO added.