Aligarh Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College (Aligarh Muslim University)

What it is: The Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental (MAO) College at Aligarh was founded by Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, who conceived it on a visit to England in 1869 as a residential college mainly for Muslim students (Encyclopedia.com). Wikipedia says the school opened on 24 May 1875, Queen Victoria's birthday, and that Lord Lytton laid the foundation stone of the college on 8 January 1877. By 1880 Sir Sayyid had secured considerable grants from the Maharaja of Patiala. The Aligarh Muslim University Act took effect on 1 December 1920 and turned the college into a university.

Leaders: Sir Sayyid led the project until his death in 1898. Wikipedia names Henry George Impey Siddons as the college's first principal. For the university, Wikipedia names the Raja of Mahmudabad as the first vice-chancellor and Sultan Jahan, Begum of Bhopal, as chancellor, while a Dawn interview calls Sultan Jahan the first vice-chancellor, so the sources differ. Zakir Husain was appointed vice-chancellor in 1948 and took regular charge in 1950 (Wikipedia).

Its part in this history: Wikipedia says that before 1939 faculty and students backed an all-India nationalist movement, and that after 1939 sentiment shifted towards the Muslim League. The historian Venkat Dhulipala writes in ThePrint that Jinnah called the university "the arsenal of Muslim India", that the League took control of its court and executive council in the 1940s, and that its students helped found and lead the All India Muslim Students Federation.

Key moments

• 1945 and 1946: in the elections that Dhulipala calls a referendum on Pakistan, Aligarh students campaigned as League foot soldiers. Jinnah sent them to other provinces, Punjab among them, and funded their work. Roger Long writes in Dawn that a League training camp at Aligarh at the end of 1945 drew about 650 students.
• 1946 to 1949: Wikipedia, citing a 2005 study, says student numbers of over 5,000 in 1946 and 1947 fell to about 1,000 by 1949 after Partition, and that the vice-chancellor, Zahid Husain, migrated to Pakistan.
• 17 December 2019: at Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, students led by Sikh Youth of Punjab president Paramjit Singh Mand protested against the police action on students at Jamia Millia Islamia and Aligarh Muslim University (Sikh Siyasat News).

Where it stands: Wikipedia reports that in 1967 the Supreme Court held that the university was not a minority institution, and that in November 2024 a seven-judge bench overruled that judgment by 4 to 3 and left a separate bench to decide the university's minority claim.