Maulana Ghulam Mohammed Vastanvi

Maulana Ghulam Mohammed Vastanvi was born in the Vastan village of Gujarat, and educated in a madrasa near Surat. An MBA graduate, he was elected the vice-chancellor of the Darul Uloom Deoband, the second biggest Islamic seminary in the world — known to frequently issue orthodox fatwas — on 10 January 2011.Soon after taking charge, the moderate and modernist cleric who wanted to reform madrasa education, drew flak for praising Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi. He was quoted as saying, “Let's move on, the riots happened eight years ago." He had also said that Muslims had progressed under the Narendra Modi rule.[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="380" caption="PTI"]

[/caption]Vastanvi later claimed he was misquoted by the media. Soon after, there were calls for his resignation, and a three-member committee was constituted on February 23 to investigate the charges. This was a few days after he offered to resign. But he went back on his words on July 20, saying he would stay if the report cleared him of the charges.When the report came out, Vastanvi refused to resign saying the report was “incomplete”. He told India Today, "It was supposed to probe three things — the allegations against me, the teachers who instigated the students and the students who created a ruckus on the campus. However, the report is silent on the second and third issues and hence unacceptable to me."The New Indian Express reported that “though the committee did not blame Vastanvi for the controversy, he was apparently sacked on the premise that he did not stick to his earlier promise of resignation.” Given his reluctance to step down, 13 of the 18-member Majlise- Shura (the central advisory/governing council) sacked him on 24 July.The committee used newspaper interviews with Vastanvi as the basis for the report and opinion columns on him. Up against the politicised Madanis who saw him as a threat and joined forced to oust him, and being an outsider — hailing from Gujarat — in the North Indian dominated management, Vastanvi claimed he was a victim of political propaganda. Added to that the bad press he got from the Delhi Urdu press, that included insults and allegations calling him an RSS stooge, a Zionist and a Hindu agent.Maulana Abul Qasim Nomani of Kanpur has succeeded him as the vice-chancellor.