Inside India’s Oldest Muslim University

Adil Hasan’s eponymous photo series on Aligarh Muslim University is a stark portrayal of life within its walls for the 30,000-odd students that call it home. While there are students from all corners of India, some even come from as far as Thailand, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Libya, and Malaysia and it’s this diversity that feeds right into Hasan’s fascination and portrayal.

Hasan studied photography at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. During his time there, he worked on a project wherein he invited himself into people’s homes and took their portraits. He saw a similarity between the lives of the subjects he shot in Auckland, and the ones he knew inhabited the halls of Aligarh and decided to pursue it.

“It was done nearly as typology on the kinds of people that inhabited the central business district, and the architecture of these small cramped city apartments made for students and migrant workers living there. My thoughts while doing this were always on Aligarh.

I’ve been visiting, since childhood, my uncle and aunt there, who are both professors at AMU. I’d never interacted with the town properly, and this photo-story was my way of exploring this world, and an opportunity to meet and spend time with students there,” said Hasan.

With its startlingly cosmopolitan student body — this is a small town in Uttar Pradesh, after all — Aligarh is so much more than just a university. It’s a microcosm within itself, with its own political, social, and religious complexities. While AMU’s doors are open to all students, 80 percent of its students are Muslim.

“In Aligarh, you meet all kinds. There is an orthodox right wing that’s very interesting to interact with, because of the fact they’re educated and have leanings towards the clerical. And the left is where the intelligentsia comes from; and then there is the far left, quite socialist in their outlook, and discernibly similar to the orthodox right,” said Hasan.

Interestingly, a majority of international students prefer to stay off-campus. Housing is cheap in Aligarh, and the food served in the hostel’s kitchens isn’t suited to everyone’s tastes. It is the few that live on-campus that Hasan has portrayed in his series.

Though maintained on the outside, the interiors of the student houses reveal another story: peeling paint, crumbling archways, and dingy alcoves. Looking at the two side by side makes you feel like you’re looking at a prettily painted mouth, which opens to reveal decaying teeth.

Some of the images almost have an air of despondency about them—there’s an almost tangible, enervating element that seems to drip down the once bright (but now faded) walls and into the subjects of the photograph.

 I. View of the central campus from the rooftop of the Minto Circle high school.

II. One of the relatively new student halls, which has a combination of double rooms, triple rooms and dormitories.

III. However, international students almost never stay on campus, preferring their own accommodations and, often, the company of their own nationals.

IV. Sofree Baso is a Thai student who studies Political science in A.M.U.

V. The student warden of Ambedkar Hall, made for the students of the law faculty, looks down from his floor.

VII. Meston swimming Pool: India’s oldest swimming pool from the times of the British Raj, is also western Uttar Pradesh’s only Olympic-sized pool.

VIII. Study Room in S.S. Hall: Reading rooms are provided for in most Halls. Most students are seen here close to examinations.

IX. Like most Thai students, Kujasmin loves working on and revamping old dilapidated scooters and taking them back to his country.

 X. Yemeni Student Abdullah Kaid, with his children. The Yemeni students didn’t wish for their wives to be photographed.

XI. A.M.U. graveyard: The local muslim graveyard resides at one corner of the university. Space here is much contested and the concrete graves are criticised for the same reason.