How two killings exposed the collapse of moral governance at AMU

The murder of a teacher inside the campus of Aligarh Muslim University is a profound moral rupture that forces the nation to look inward at how our public institutions are being governed. Universities are not marketplaces or transit zones where violence is anticipated and normalised. They are sanctuaries of learning, debate, and trust. When blood is spilled within such a space, the failure is not limited to security lapses—it reflects a deeper erosion of ethical responsibility, administrative seriousness, and institutional conscience.

A university campus functions on an unspoken moral contract. Teachers devote their lives to education with the belief that the institution will protect them, not just intellectually but physically. Students entrust their formative years to these spaces, assuming safety as a given. When a teacher is shot dead within campus limits, that contract collapses entirely. The sense of betrayal is deeply personal for every teacher who now questions their safety and every student who wonders whether learning has become secondary to survival.

As an alumnus & Donor member of AMU, my anguish is sharpened by memory. Aligarh Muslim University has historically been a place where ideas were contested fiercely but lives were protected firmly. It has contributed to India’s intellectual and national life for generations. To see such an institution descend into fear and insecurity is not merely disappointing—it is devastating. The tragedy lies not only in what happened on one night, but in how far the institution has drifted from its foundational values.

The killing of AMU Teacher Rao Danish Ali must therefore be understood not as an isolated eruption of violence, but as the inevitable outcome of years of administrative neglect. Violence rarely announces itself suddenly; it grows in environments where warnings are ignored, accountability is deferred, and authority becomes detached from responsibility. AMU’s present crisis has been long in the making, and many within the campus community sensed its approach long before the fatal shot was fired.

For several years now, campus security at AMU has been visibly weakening. This deterioration did not occur in secret. Teachers, students, and staff have repeatedly expressed anxiety, informally if not always officially. When fear becomes normalised, people stop protesting and start adjusting. That adjustment—walking in groups, avoiding certain areas, staying silent—is itself evidence of governance failure. Institutions should eliminate fear, not train people to live with it.

The revelation that most CCTV cameras on campus were non-functional is a damning indictment. In the contemporary world, surveillance systems are a basic, non-negotiable component of campus safety. Their failure signals administrative apathy. Cameras that do not work are worse than no cameras at all—they create an illusion of security while enabling impunity. Even more disturbing is the fact that university authorities had been warned earlier about security vulnerabilities. When institutions receive warnings and still fail to act, responsibility becomes layered and cumulative. This was not a lightning strike from a clear sky. It was the predictable result of ignoring known risks. In such cases, moral culpability extends beyond the trigger-puller to those who allowed the conditions for violence to persist.

This is where the question of leadership becomes unavoidable. A Vice-Chancellor is not merely an academic administrator; the office carries moral authority over the entire campus ecosystem. The safety of teachers and students is not an auxiliary concern—it is central to governance. When a murder occurs under such circumstances, leadership cannot hide behind procedural explanations or ongoing investigations. Moral responsibility does not wait for court verdicts. My call for the Vice-Chancellor’s resignation is grounded precisely in this understanding of moral leadership. Resignation, in such moments, is not an admission of personal guilt in the criminal sense.

It is an acknowledgment that the system under one’s stewardship has failed catastrophically. Across the world, democratic and academic cultures recognise resignation as an ethical response to institutional collapse, not as humiliation. Some argue that since the criminal investigation is underway, questions of accountability should be postponed. This argument misunderstands the nature of institutional ethics. Criminal investigations determine who committed the crime. Moral and administrative inquiries determine how an institution allowed the crime to occur. These are parallel, not competing, processes. Waiting for one to conclude before initiating the other only deepens public mistrust.

If a grave incident had already occurred in March 2025,  when a AMU school student was stabbed inside the campus, then the question that naturally and unavoidably arises is this: why did the university administration not respond by tightening security and making surveillance systems fully functional? The stabbing of Mohd. Kaif should have served as a final warning, a moment demanding immediate corrective action—intensified patrolling, repair of CCTV cameras, stricter access control, and visible administrative intervention. Instead, the absence of any decisive response suggests a disturbing culture of complacency. When an institution witnesses violence against a minor within its premises and still fails to act, responsibility deepens from negligence to indifference. This raises serious doubts about whether warnings were taken seriously at all, or whether they were merely acknowledged on paper and forgotten in practice. The subsequent murder of a teacher, despite this earlier incident, exposes a chilling continuity of failure. It demonstrates that the administration either underestimated the gravity of campus violence or chose to look away. In either case, the outcome is the same: preventable harm, eroded trust, and a governance structure that appears detached from the realities unfolding within the campus of Aligarh Muslim University.

The long-standing continuity of the proctorial system despite worsening law and order raises serious concerns about administrative complacency. Continuity is valuable only when it produces stability and improvement. When continuity coincides with decline, it becomes stagnation. Retaining the same structures without reform in the face of repeated failures sends a message that authority is insulated from consequence. Today, fear is no longer anecdotal at AMU; it is atmospheric. Students whisper instead of debate. Teachers calculate risk before commitment. Families worry about sending their children to campus. This climate is incompatible with education. Universities flourish on openness, confidence, and freedom of thought. Fear corrodes all three. An institution that cannot guarantee safety cannot claim academic excellence.

AMU’s crisis also has national implications. This is not a private university or a local college. It is a central institution funded by public money and invested with national symbolism. What happens here reflects on the governance of higher education across India. Allowing such a breakdown to pass without serious intervention would normalise institutional decay. That is why ministerial intervention is essential. An independent, high-level inquiry committee under the Ministry of Education is the only mechanism capable of restoring credibility. Internal inquiries often fail precisely because they are constrained by existing power structures.

Such a committee must go beyond files and formal statements. It must speak confidentially to teachers, students, and non-teaching staff who live the campus reality daily. Only then can the pervasive fear, silence, and coercion—often invisible in official records—be understood. Governance cannot be evaluated solely through paperwork when the crisis is lived, emotional, and psychological. 

My appeal is not driven by hostility toward the institution I once called home. It is driven by moral urgency. Silence at this moment would be betrayal—betrayal of a slain teacher, of frightened students, and of a university’s legacy. Loyalty to institutions does not mean defending failure; it means demanding correction.

History teaches us that institutions survive not by denying collapse, but by confronting it honestly. Leadership is measured not by how long one holds office, but by how one responds when systems fail. AMU stands at such a crossroads today. If the university is to heal, accountability must begin at the top. Only then can trust be rebuilt from the ground up. Only then can AMU reclaim its place as a space of safety, scholarship, and moral seriousness. It is a moral reckoning. And moral reckonings, if ignored, do not fade away—they return with greater force. For the sake of AMU, and for the integrity of India’s academic institutions, this reckoning must be faced now, with courage and consequence.  

(Author is Donor, Alumnus and Former Media Advisor of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). Email : profjasimmd@gmail.com )