AMU library opens its doors to Women’s College students

ALIGARH: It was in the 1960s that the undergraduate girls of Abdullah Women's College were told they would no more have access to AMU's hallowed Maulana Azad Library. After decades of demand, denial and heartburn, in what many said was one of the university's most landmark events, girl students stepped into the library once again

The first bus left the Women's College campus with eight girls at 8.30 am, but more joined later. Inside the library, many just looked around in awe at the structure and soaked in the feeling, still coming to terms with the new reality. Others exchanged high-fives and withdrew the books they had always wanted to. "It's a historic day for the women students of AMU and for the university itself," one of them said.

The controversy that erupted on November 10, when the AMU VC Zameeruddin Shah said allowing girls to access the central library of the 94-year-old institution was not possible owing to space constraint and that such a move would lead to "four times more boys" crowding the "packed" facility, was put to rest on a nippy December morning.

"Any idea which is new takes time to fructify, this time only eight girls came and others will pick up," Shah told TOI. "From next Sunday, the numbers will increase. The girls should know that this opportunity has come to them with great difficulty and they should make full use of it. Soon there will be book stores and stationary shops around the Maulana Azad Library too."

On November 12, the VC had submitted before the Allahabad high court that all students, including girls, have been allowed access to the library from the current session itself. He had also clarified that undergraduate girl students of the university's Abdullah Women's College can also become members of the library.

Undergraduates enter AMU's Maulana Azad Library on Sunday for the first time since the 1960s.

A month later, some of them woke up earlier than usual to ensure they reached the library on time. Since it was their first time at the facility, some of them did not know that bags were not allowed inside. The group of eight was frisked before they deposited their bags at the counter, grabbed their tokens and stepped in.

Shabnam Pervez, who studies zoology had failed to find books on embryology in Aligarh bookstores. "Our library falls short in catering to our demands. So the access to the Maulana Azad Library is a big relief," she said. "My teachers have always told us about certain writers, today I am going to look up for them."

Sana Parveen, a physiology student, was equally upbeat. "I want my project on cardiovascular diseases among the elderly to be different from others. My work should have the information from the best books of physiology," she said.

Many students had consulted their teachers on the books they would borrow. "To borrow a book available in our own library would be wasting the Sunday. So I made sure I did not borrow a book that is already available at our own college," said Gulfisha Nasreen, a home science student.

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AMU library opens its doors to Women's College students