In the last decades of twentieth century leftist and socialist intellectuals held sway on the Indian intellectual scene. The trade mark was a khadi bag on shoulders and kurta on pants. An Alig who grew up among such an environment but who was free of the burden to carry an image once asked another person who was a rather specimen type of example, "Are you a JNU type of intellectual?" This person was taken aback. But soon they stuck a long-lasting friendship.
One Alig writes, as we have quoted earlier too, "I noticed him during my student's days from1969-77 that a sherwani wearing person without cap, a khadi bag on his shoulder.This was his trademark."
Now this must be Miyan. The question is whether he too was a JNU type of intellectual. The answer is, of course, in negative. Miyan has gone through various phases. He was aware of the quote, "A young man who is not socialist in his youth has no heart. A young man who remains so has no brains."
But Miyan had undiluted appreciation of the contributions of many leftists. He was very appreciative of many actions of late Professor Rais Ahmed of Physics Department who became Vice Chairman of UGC, Director of NCERT and an adviser to a foreign government. Similarly he used to quote at least three contribution of late Professor Nurul Hasan during his tenure as a union minister. One was making high quality Swiss paper for Urdu text books. One can still get Masnawi of Maulana Rum published, by Sabrang, on paper that is just like Bible paper. The second thing was sorting out a matter related to he Mosque near ISBT (Kashmiri Gate ). The third was nationalization of five libraries so that funds became available for their maintenance.
And one should not forget that it was Professor Abdul Alim, a Marxist, who gave Miyan his first job.