Hyderabad, July 26 -- While attending the first Round Table Conference in London in 1930, writer-poet and freedom fighter Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar boldly told the British Raj, "If you do not give us freedom in India, you will have to give me a grave here."

Soon after this episode, Jauhar died and the British were spared the trouble of finding a place for his grave as his body was shipped to Palestine and interred inside Masjid Al Aqsa, one of Islam's holiest shrines.

If Jauhar were to return to India today, he would be deeply hurt at the controversy surrounding a university named after him in Rampur, Uttar Pradesh. Mohammad Ali Jauhar University awaits its destruction as the authorities have threatened to demolish 38 out of 40 buildi...