Currently, a sit-in is going on in front of Jauhar University in Rampur. Azam Khan, a member of the Samajwadi Party who is in jail at present, is the chairman of the trust running the University. Students are sitting in to oppose the notice of the Rampur Development Authority (RDA), which has asked for 38 of the forty buildings of the University to be demolished. This will be tantamount to the closure of the University.

As per The Indian Express (July 20, 2026), Mehroza Khan, a law student at the University, said, "Our career and future are at stake. We have decided to stage this sit-in because we want the Government to reconsider its decision to demolish the University. We would not be able to continue our studies elsewhere, especially at colleges located far away. The biggest thing is that we get fee concessions here. Students from SC/ST backgrounds receive a 50 per cent concession. Students who have lost their parents also get concessions. There are professional courses like B.Pharma and D.Pharma, which many of us would not be able to pursue elsewhere."

The foundation stone of Mohammad Ali Jauhar University in Rampur was laid on September 18, 2006. The campus was developed over several years by the Mohammad Ali Jauhar Trust. However, the exact construction timeline for various structures has become a subject of intense legal and administrative dispute.

According to the Rampur Development Authority (RDA), while the University's Medical College and one academic block had valid approved plans, 38 other buildings across the campus were constructed without obtaining mandatory permissions from the competent civic authority. The University administration has maintained that these buildings were constructed years earlier—at a time when their location (Singankhera village) did not fall under the RDA's jurisdiction—and were previously approved by the local Zilla Panchayat.

Because of these unapproved constructions and alleged land-use violations, the RDA ordered the removal or demolition of these 38 buildings. The students and many social activists and politicians plead that this demolition is unwarranted, as the University is rendering a valuable service for students of various categories, and more so for Muslims and SC/STs. They claim that the primary aim of the Government is to undermine education for Muslims in particular. As such, education is one of the major areas neglected by the present regime, as the current upsurge of students and youth shows. As for minority educational institutions, more obstacles are being created.

The other aspect is the demolition of structures identified with Muslim identity. The Jauhar University is the latest in the line of demolitions. Kashi, Mathura, Sambhal, the Ajmer Dargah and Saharanpur mosques are already in the queue. Recently, we have seen the Kamaal Maula Masjid being handed over to the Hindu side because it was the temple of Vagdevi. Other mosques face the axe along the lines of the Babri Mosque.

These claims resemble the tactics used during the Ram Janmabhoomi movement to weaponise medieval history for political and communal objectives. These mosques and similar disputes are based on the premise that temples were destroyed to build mosques. These claims often rely on exaggerated or distorted interpretations of history, frequently citing questionable colonial-era footnotes.

Permitting these claims to be entertained directly challenges the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, which was designed to maintain the religious status quo as it existed on August 15, 1947, except in the case of the Babri Mosque.

The pattern began with the Hindu Right wing's success in demolishing the Babri Mosque, where the claim was that Babar had destroyed the Ram Temple to build the mosque. Despite the judgement being based on "people's sentiments" and "God coming in the dream" of the Honourable Judge, the judgement did regard the installation of Ram Lalla idols in 1949 as a crime. Also, the demolition of the Mosque on December 6, 1992, was regarded as a crime. This demolition paved the way for the exponential rise of the electoral strength of the BJP, which, in due course, came to power at the Centre, first in 1996, then in 1999, and, of course, in 2014.

But the rewards of the Babri Mosque demolition were very mouth-watering for the RSS-BJP. The series continues with a claim here and there, which the legal system, ignoring the 1991 Act, permits to be investigated, etc. Polarisation is intensified, benefiting Hindu nationalism. The creative minds of the thinkers of the Hindu Right wing are now aiming at a University. This proposed demolition will serve an additional purpose: that of defaming the Muslim community on the one hand and pushing it into a corner by depriving the minority community of education, which is its dire necessity.

On similar lines, an old mosque in a small area in Saharanpur has also been served a notice to vacate on the grounds of not having adequate permissions. The law of adverse possession does not seem to exist for Muslims in the eyes of the Hindu Right wing. So, somehow proving the illegality of Muslim structures and trying to get them demolished is a continuous effort.

The reckless use of bulldozers and gaining more popularity amongst sections of society is yet another way of pushing the Muslim community into a corner. Demolition seems to be their way of "building the nation." The huge loss of social wealth through demolitions on one ground or another is immaterial to the RSS-BJP.

Building the nation had an entirely different meaning in the aftermath of Independence. The first Prime Minister of India had the idea that building IITs, AIIMS, the public sector, and irrigation facilities constituted the infrastructure on which we could overcome our deprivations to some extent. With the rise of the Hindu Right wing, the direction seems to have been reversed. We are searching for temples underneath mosques; we are looking for the illegality of Muslim structures, which serves to provide fodder for their politics and promote hate and the polarisation of society.

Can good sense prevail, and can we come back to the path of nation-building by following the values of the Indian Constitution and shunning bulldozers instead of constantly claiming the illegality of Muslim structures by stretching some little point here or there?