Book Review

The Sarkari Musalman: Life and travails of a soldier educationist

Author: Lt. Gen. Zameer Uddin Shah (Retd.) | Genre: Memoir


The Sarkari Musalman ¹

I wanted to buy this book since its release entirely because I had witnessed Lt. Gen. Zameer’s VCship during my 2 years of B.Tech, and I wanted to find out the story behind his discipline and stiff character.

Personal encounters

When I came to Aligarh in April 2016, to give my entrance exam a hue of disturbance was felt as a car was burned at the proctor’s office. Since I didn’t know about sine die at that time, and I thought that it would be just another story in India that I was hearing since childhood, and I went and gave my entrance the next day. Later, I got to know about the backstories of the murdered student and the steps taken by the VC to overturn the situation peacefully and not disrupt ongoing entrance exams.

Later in my second year when we started our club, we had called him for a live demonstration of our first partially working AUV so that we could be funded by the university to fully complete the vehicle. We tried to furnish ourselves with all the knowledge from the perspective of the marine army corps, yet he managed to ask questions which made us not just speak out of the air. He then gave us very great bits of advice to work on to move forward in the project. His kind words and appreciation was the first push for us to keep on working on the project. We didn’t t expect much from him concerning funds as releasing funds required at least 6 months, and he was leaving office in 2 months. In the end, we were glad that our idea had at least reached the apex position of the university, and we hoped to get help from the next VC.


Lt. Gen. Zameer Uddin Shah guiding the students of AUV ZHCET team along with Dr. Saleem A. Khan (Faculty Advisor) on left and various other professors. ²

The book is the embodiment of Lt. Zameer’s life, from his childhood to his expeditions all around the world. There’s no match to his stature and decisive skills when he was in the army. Directly from his camel regiment and till his tenure in the Armed Forces Tribunal, he stuck to his loyalty and honesty. His encounter with the North East region and his part in the 1971 Bangladesh war to the events of 2002 Godhra carnage and how it could have been stopped was all commandable of nature. He had also been appointed as the defense attache to Saudi Arabia during Hamid Ansari’s ambassadorship.

He described his will to uplift the Muslim community and would always find ways to give them advice. He tried to persuade the AMU horse riding students to join the army by assuring them of a life of honor and glory as an army man. He emphasized that any discrimination that happens is only based on education and nothing else. The students replied to him to be one of the ‘Sarkari musalmans’ and it’s not the same for the rest of them. He believed in an optimistic view of the future of India. But then looking from a middle-class perspective who managed to study in AMU and imbibe its tehzeeb surely makes him/her give back to their institution but rarely does it comes to mind that he/she could join the army just for the glory. Some of my friends are aspiring to get into civil services, lest it’s a totally different discipline, and hence their motives for joining are also different. The only thing that I believe comes close to army training is the NCC training academy at the university. But, only very few students later think to join the army the rest just join it for the trips.

The important thing I really loved in the book is that he emphasized the education and proper upbringing of Muslim youth to change the future. But I believe that his simple explanation of “honor and glory” isn’t just enough to persuade students to get into the army. Nowadays, youngsters believe in quick and fast stardom, and they don’t see the army as an option. Respecting his goal of educating and ways of uplifting the madrasas of India, I wish him luck for the rest of his life and hereafter.

A Fact that most people don’t know: He has one more brother who did his engineering from IIT Kharagpur!