Sir Syed Day 2024 in the San Francisco Bay Area
By Ras H. Siddiqui
The Aligarh Muslim University Alumni Association of Northern California (AMUAANC) celebrated Sir Syed Day with a sold-out event held on Saturday, November 11, 2024, at the India Community Center in the City of Milpitas (San Francisco Bay Area).
The vision of Sir Syed (1817-1898) is very much alive at this annual program which also embeds within it an Aligarh Education Endowment Fund (AEEF) fundraiser. This is a gathering of regional AMU alumni (known as Aligs) and their friends from all over Northern California and remains an anxiously awaited affair.
Sir Syed Day consists of two segments, the formal opening introductions, speeches including the keynote address and the AEEF fundraising. This is followed by a closing Urdu Mushaira (poetry recital) segment which always adds a fine touch to the evening.
Sir Syed was born in Delhi, British India, on October 17, 1817, and died in Aligarh in the year 1898. He was buried in the Mosque compound located within his crowning achievement which we know today as Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). This university may not be a main attraction for tourists worldwide but in this writer’s humble opinion it is possibly more important than others. Not as beautiful as various other historical landmarks in India today (it is more like the Red Fort in Delhi) but in some ways, it is more significant. The man who made AMU possible was honored once again at this event at ICC as he should be, because without him many of India’s Muslims in their then imploding community would not have had little chance to access modern scientific education.
The evening started off with dinner and a great deal of socializing. Shahla Khan was program emcee, and she did a great job coordinating the first segment and started with inviting young (Hafiz) Mohammad Zaid Khan to start the formalities with a Qur’an recitation which he performed well and followed it up with an English translation of the recited verses. Shala also provided a rundown of the schedule for the evening and next invited AMUAANC’s current President Aftab Umar to present his welcoming remarks.
Aftab Umar greeted everyone and said that he was honored to serve as the President of the Aligarh Muslim University Alumni Association of Northern California. He warmly welcomed everyone to this most anticipated annual event by the organization in the bay area. It is truly heartening to see so many of you here this evening, he said. Your continued support has been the backbone of this organization. Umar specially thanked the sponsors who have made this event possible year after year (this time they were Drs Kamil & Talat Hasan, Mr & Mrs Zaheer Kajani, Mr & Mrs Syed Sarwat, Mr Jamal Qureishi, Infoglen Technologies and Amana Mutual Funds Trust). Aftab also spoke about the vison of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and how the fundraising for education focus of this event aligned with his legacy which is as relevant today as it was during his lifetime. The mission of the AMU Alumni Association and its partner AEEF is to provide educational opportunities to those in need. This is only possible with your support for which we thank you. In Sir Syed’s own words, “Ignorance is the Cause of Poverty,” he said. In closing, the AMUAANC President paid tribute to Suhail Farrukh, a pillar of the organization who passed away earlier this year.
The Aligarh Education Endowment Fund Update presented by Shaheer Khan was next. As mentioned earlier, education remains the focus of Sir Syed Day as the founder of AMU would have wanted it. Shaheer Bhai provided many details on the AEEF and its activities during the past 14 years all of which are too numerous to even highlight in this one article. He did mention that the organization had disbursed around 1.3 million dollars since its inception and that with many success stories within the diaspora and AMU alumni, this figure can be vastly improved. He also added that all the work done by AEEF here is on a volunteer basis so there is no salary overhead. And the continuing generosity of our community continues to fuel this effort as the donations did not stop even during the COVID pandemic years, which is a feat worthy of appreciation.
Scholarships for economically weak students, the Hamara School Building Project and supporting food programs for students and in many cases their families, are the focus of the AEEF effort. Expenses in 2024 and projected costs for 2024-2025 academic session (approximately $400,000) were also detailed. A short video on AEEF work was also shown before the fundraising began and another even shorter one from comedian Hasan Minhaj followed to inspire our younger generation. Hasan’s parents (Najme and Seema Minhaj) are both AMU alumni and it was great to see them sitting in the audience here proudly watching their son make a pitch for AEEF on Sir Syed Day. Hasan said that education is the bedrock of all future success and asked everyone to be generous. And one would be remiss not to mention here that Prof Najma Akhtar (former Vice Chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamic, Delhi) also attended this program.
The last speaker was Mr Chittireddy Sripal Consul (Pol & Tech) from the Indian Consulate in San Francisco. Sripal filled in on short notice for Consul General Dr K. Srikar Reddy who could not make it, and he did a convincing job on stage here. During his keynote speech the multilingual Chittireddy shared that the Consul General Reddy was unfortunately delayed in Utah. He thanked the AMU Alumni Association for their warm welcome and appreciated the organization for the transformational work that it is doing at the community level in India. He discussed the history of modern India where the emphasis is often on the Non-Cooperation and Khilafat movements in the discussion but added that one also needs to revisit the 1857 Revolt and Sir Syed’s analysis of its causes. Sir Syed’s emphasis on modernization through education instead of confrontation was quite a novel approach at the time. Aligarh Muslim University’s positive role in preparing people for the future was also discussed by Sripal. And his sharing of thoughts was certainly appreciated here.
Sir Syed Day is incomplete without the singing of the Tarana-e-Aligarh (the AMU Anthem) written by poet Majaz in 1933 and composed by Khan Ishtiaq Mohammad in 1955. The line of Aligarh alumni that sang along in front of the stage here at this event showed both their enthusiasm and connection to their alma mater. And many people sitting in the hall assisted them, a truly inspiring spectacle.
This report will not be able to do justice to the second segment of Sir Syed Day which is the Mushaira. The Urdu poetry recital here this time was led by Senior Poet Abbas Tabish both as its President and its Conductor. World Urdu Day is also celebrated on November 9 th which was another (planned?) coincidence. The Urdu language today transcends South Asian borders and is now reaching international audiences thanks to social media, although its creative core remains in India and Pakistan.
Luckily for us readers and listeners who love the language here in North America, many serious Urdu poets have migrated to the west where some are also working as doctors, engineers, and IT professionals in real life. The local poets at this event fit this description. The presenters of Urdu poetry excellence here (in order of appearance) were Dr Aifra Ahmad (Bay Area), Dr Yasin Aatir (Fresno), Ahmar Shehwaar (Bay Area) and international guest poets, the seasoned professionals, Ahmed Salman (Pakistan), Shakeel Azmi (India), Nusrat Mehdi (India), and Abbas Tabish (Pakistan). All that can be added here is that one just had to be there to be inspired by these master craftsmen of the language. With just two lines of their Urdu poetry, they presented a wider philosophical canvas and conveyed deeper thoughts than this entire article in English could ever hope to convey!
(Dedicated to those AMU Alumni who are no longer with us)
