Aligarh (Uttar Pradesh)

Aligarh is a town and district in the Meerut division of Uttar Pradesh, formerly the United Provinces. In 1941 the district had 1,372,641 inhabitants (186,381 of them Muslims) and the town 112,655 (51,712 Muslims). ¹

The town was first called Koil (Kol). Its citadel, built in 1542, was named Aligarh ("high fort") when Najaf Khan restored it in 1776; earlier it had been called Ramgarh, and occasionally Sabitgarh or Muhammadgarh. Koil was captured at the end of the 12th century by Qutb al-Din Aybak, was usually subject to Delhi, and was a fief of Balban's eldest son about 1270. It was ruled from Jaunpur in 1393 and was independent for a time from 1447. The Marathas of the Scindia family took it in 1785, and Lord Lake drove them out in 1803. Ibn Battuta mentions it. ¹

Modern Aligarh owes its place to its university. In 1871 Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan began to collect funds, some Hindus contributing, for a boys' school run largely on English lines. A high school opened in 1875, and in 1878 it became a second-grade college, the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College. Sir Sayyid kept its management in his own hands during his lifetime, with the first principals Th. Beck and Theodore Morison as helpers. Entrance was never restricted to Muslims, and instruction was in English except in religious subjects. After the founder's death the management passed to Muslim trustees. ¹

In 1904 there were 353 boys in the school, 269 students in the college and 36 law students, of whom 76 were Hindus. In 1920 the college became a university, with an intermediate college for the first two years, following the recommendations of the Calcutta Commission. The non-cooperation movement caused trouble and led to the founding of a National University, which was active for about two years. The university went on to add Unani medicine (from 1929, with a college in 1934), an institute of technology and electrical engineering and a Unani hospital (1938), women's admission to some degrees (1938), an agricultural college (1945), and in 1947 four faculties: arts, science, engineering and technology, and theology. Partition caused great upheaval and many staff left, but the university survived. ²