Patna: The Institute of Post-Graduate Studies and Research in Arabic and Persian Learning (Idara Tahqiqat Arabi and Farsi) was set up in 1955 by Bihar government on the demand of the Muslim community in the capital city of Patna. The sole purpose behind the establishment of the institute was to produce researchers in Arabic and Persian languages. But today it is a typical case of official neglect. In fact, it is bleeding to death, bit by bit, and silently.
It may surprise many that despite being a pure government institute, this 55-year-old institute does not have its own building till the date and is being run in a building of Madarsa Shamsul Hoda. The most shocking revelation is that many sanctioned seats of staffs – both teaching and non-teaching -- are vacant for years because the government did not appoint anyone after former staffs retired. There are five seats for lecturers and two for clerks that are vacant since 1987 while one seat for assistant research scholar, one for librarian and two seats for peon are vacant since 1993. The apathy of the government is killing the sole motto of the institution. This is despite the fact that the languages of Arabic and Persian are still taught at colleges and universities.
Library of the institute
Talking to TwoCircles.net Dr. Ejaz Ahmad, registrar of the institute, said in depressing tone: “We are government employees, so, what all we can do is to inform the government about problems of the institute and that we have done several times but we did not get any response. We have written to Human Resource Development department of Bihar government time and again but all in vain.”
The institution is run under HRD and has four faculties; Arabic, Persian, English and Pedagogy. Of them, the English faculty does not have any lecturer for years against the sanctioned one seat and Arabic and Persian departments have two lecturers each instead of sanctioned three for each while Pedagogy department has only one lecturer against three.
Dr. Ejaz Ahmad, Ragistrar of the institute
About courses Dr. Ejaz said: “The Institute selects five Fazil from Madarsa Board for 2-year research course for depth knowledge of Arabic and Persian languages. It also runs 6-month diploma course named Modern Arabic and Persian Languages and Learning for students who had Urdu subject in intermediate.”
“From 1964 to 1996 every year 25 untrained teachers of high schools were trained by the institute but later it was stopped by the government” he added.
It is not less than hypocrisy towards development of this institute that researchers here are given Rs 100 as a monthly scholarship without any other facilities even today as it was given in starting days of the institute and there was no increase in it since then while researchers of such other research institutes are given Rs.2500.
The building in which institute is run
In fact, the institute has published some authentic books in Arabic and Persian and produced a number of research scholars but could not get attention of government authority and hence today it is fighting for its existence.
According to Dr. Ejaz library of the institute has 1500 unparalleled books in Arabic and Persian and almost five thousand national and international magazines.
It is feared that these books will be destroyed or at least community will be unable to get benefits from them as government is narrowing the works of the institute by not appointing staffs and it seems that one day it will be closed when present staffs will retire.
No comments:
Post a Comment