ACADEMIC WITH A VISION

OSAMA MANZAR AND SHAIFALI CHIKERMANE PROFILE Dr. Syed Hasan hwwo has planted the seeds of his dream in Insan School.
This is the tale of two Syeds. One who lived in the 19th century, the other in this one. One is dead, the other is still alive. One was Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, the other is Dr. Syed Hasan. Khan, who was born on October 17, 1817, and died in 1898, was in his time reviled as an atheist, separatist and communalist. He also set up the Mohammedan Anglo Oriental College, now better known as Aligarh Muslim University. Hasan who is 68 years old was dubbed a CIA and Pakistani agent In Marcy 1991, he was awarded the Padma Shri for his services to society. Hasan is the man responsible for setting up Insan School in Kishanganj, now a college.
There is a difference between these two eminent Muslim educationists. Khan styled himself an educationist, while  Hasan was born one. Says Dr. Hasan: “My mother was a great admirer of Sir Syed and his movement. When my elder brother was born, she named him Syed Ahmad, but when he died she became apprehensive and named my Syed Hasan instead.”
Thus began the life of an insane and his insaniyat. He is studied at Jamia Millia Islamia and began his career as a teacher in the sama institution. On a recommendation from Dr Mohammad Mujeeb at Jamia, he was granted a fellowship by Lincoln University in the US in 1954. While working s a graduate assistant, he completed his PhD in psychology as well. Later, in 1962, he became an assistant professor of psychology at Forstburg State College, where he was voted ‘instructor of the year’.
Throughout the decade that he was the US, there was always the desire to come back and do something back home in India. “I often through: If the missionaries of America and Europe can leave their own countries, why can’t an Indian do can work in his own country.”
Since then, there was no stopping him. He returned from America in 1964 and soon started an educational movement by the name of Talimi Mission Core (TMC), and established an experimental office at Kishanganj, in Purnea district Purnea, then, was supposed to be the most backward and illiterate district of Bihar. Claims Dr Hasan, “Purnea, in the British period, was considered as Kalapani, where officials had often been transferred as punishment. I took this deprived place as a challenge to start the movement.
Tamili Biradri, an Urdo monthly was the second step of the movement, established in order to enlighten the people. Amazingly, the editorials of the magazine were found to be very simply and highly influential.
After getting a good enough response from the inhabitants of the district. Syed Hasan founded Insan School in November 1966, with 36 students and two teachers. Commenting on the name of the school, Hasan explained: “This school is for human beings and to propagate the teachings of humanity it has been founded”.
In a span of exactly 25 years, the school which stated with no land and no shed, today possesses more than  250 acres of land, 1,500 students and about 100 teachers. Elaborates Hasan, “ I have bough so much land only because those whose take charge after me will not have to face any difficult to further promote the college as a university, which is my ultimate dream. “The Insan experiment, became is high school, was recognized in 1977 by the Bihar state board of education and transformed into insane College in 1980. Now, degree courses in general and honours in Urdu and psychology in particular are also being conducted in the college. Intermediate examinations are held under the auspices of the Insan intermediate Council. Insan alumni can be found in different parts of the world, especially in a USA. England, Canada and Saudi Arabia. They have also established an Insan Alumni Association. The Aligarh unit of the alumni association alone has about 100 former students, all of whom are studying at Aligarh Muslim University.
The total area acquire by TMC has been named Shiksha Nagar, the township of education. The township has been divided into three parts: the school sector, the college sector and the proposed university sector. The TMC’s plan is to turn the college into Insan University by 1995.
Surprisingly, the whole township, which includes school, college and hostels, has been made of jute and bamboos only until calls it, jhonpron ka shahar, the town of huts. “Since Purnea is a big producer of bamboo, only until now. The Padma Shri Hasan calls it, Jhonpron ka Shahar, the town of huts. “Since Purnea is a big producer of bamboo, I found it economical to use the locally available resources and scrap materials. Beside this, we have already started erecting concrete buildings,” the Syed explained in detail.
In addition to the services Dr. Hasan, as a creator and director of the institution, provided to the society, he has held many honorary posts as well. He has been member, National Society for the Study of Education, Chicago, Illinois, USA (1963); education panel of the Bureau for Promotion of Urdu, ministry of education and culture, New Delhi (1978); Bihar Urdu Academy (1980) and Bihar State Adult Education Board (1978). He is a life member of the Indian Adult Education Association, New Delhi, and District Sports Association, Kishanganj. He is a member of Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE), New Delhi, since 1986. He was selected as a member of the panel under the New Education Policy by a combined organization of UNECO and the government of India for educational upliftment in Bihar.
Being a Ph.D. in psychology, he is also a very s successful psychiatrist.