POSITIVE PLANNING

Syed Mansoor Agha (born 1945) resides in Delhi. His hometown is Meerut. On July 1, 1996, during a meeting, he shared an experience that teaches a valuable lesson.

In 1963-64, he was a student at Meerut College. His Political Science teacher was Mr. K.C. Gupta. When Mr. Gupta began lecturing on the political history of India, it was very disturbing for Mr. Agha. The same was true for his classmate, Mr. Mustainur Rahman. In his lectures, Mr. Gupta presented the history of the partition and political events in a way that blamed all the Muslims. The two students discussed what they should do. They decided that getting angry or upset would not help. Instead, they needed to prepare themselves to intellectually oppose Mr. Gupta’s arguments.

According to their plan, both of them began spending their free time in the library. They studied India’s political history and the records of the partition. With thorough mental preparation, they started attending classes. Whenever Mr. Gupta presented a distorted interpretation of history, Mr. Agha and his companion would immediately correct him, providing full references and questioning why he said such things. They would point out that a certain book stated it differently and that a particular historian had described it in another way.

This went on for a few days. Finally, one day, Mr. Gupta called both students into his room. He said, “I have a lot of respect for you both. You have corrected me and shown me the light.” After that, Mr. Gupta’s teaching style completely changed. From then on, he treated both Muslim students with great respect.

This is the best way to solve such problems. Issues are always addressed through constructive methods, not destructive ones.