Challenging NCPCR recommendation to ban Madrasas in India

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By Syed Ali Mujtaba, Edited By Adam Rizvi, The India Observer, TIO: The latest recommendation of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has asked the state governments and union territories to stop funding madrasas and madrasa boards. The NCPCR also recommended that madrasa boards be discontinued and shut down.

This needs to be contested because those behind such diabolic design want to spread canard against the Muslim community and are making an assault on the well-established institution of the Muslim that the British government did not touch and allowed it to flourish in the subcontinent.  Now the protagonists who have a sick frame of mind have come up with the right idea to close the doors of the madrasa system of education that has survived the vagaries of time since the 14 century life span of India. Here is another side of the story that tells what purposes Madrasa Education serves in India and why it should not be discontinued.

the madrasa system of education where mostly Muslim students go for schooling. Now this has become a debatable issue, between the government and the Muslim community that runs the madrasa schools. Before going to the initiatives taken by the government, there is a need for better understanding of the madrasa system of education.

 In India, madrasas come under Muslim minority institutions under the Constitutional guarantees, particularly the freedom to practice, propagate religion, manage religious affairs, and establish and administer their educational institutions. In India there are two categories of madrasas: those supported by the state and those supported by the Muslim community. Madrasas supported by the state are organized under various state madrasa boards that fund the madrasas. The curriculum of the state madrasas is at par with the syllabus of different state education boards. Students enrolled in the state run madrasas, study the regular state board syllabus along with some theological and religious texts as well.

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Madrasa’s are categorized as recognized and unrecognized. Recognized’ means those affiliated with the State Board of Madrasa Education, a government body. In the six Indian states; Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bengal and Assam, a large number of madrasas are run under the state board funding. They are part of the mainstream education system and their certificates are equal to the school boards.  The unrecognized madrassas means autonomous institutions established under Article 30 of the Constitution, which gives religious and linguistic minorities the right to establish and run their educational institutions.

According to a Ministry of Minority Affairs report, in 2018-19, India had 24,010 madrasas, of which 4,878 were ‘unrecognized’ institutions. In Uttar Pradesh, there are 16,513 recognized madrasas out of which 560, or less than 4%, are receiving grants from the state government. The same data says that there are over 7,000 unrecognized madrasas in Uttar Pradesh alone.

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Muslims perspective in Madrasa debate: There is a certain kind attitude being developed in India towards the madrasa system of education. Whenever politicians talk about the education of Muslims, they unvaryingly refer to madrasa education and talk about the need for its modernization and now a step further is taken by the NCPCR to completely ban it. This, in turn, triggers a reaction from some Muslim groups, which criticize the government interfering in the Muslim communities affairs. The resulting debate sends a wrong message to the reformers that Muslim community does not need modern education.

This is being done with several assumptions without any empirical findings. The first assumption is that a sizable number of Muslim students go for schooling to madrasa. The second is that the curriculum of madrasa education is not in tune with the modern education system. Third, madrasa student’s remain unskilled and unfit for earning their livelihood. Fourth, madrasa is a place for the radicalization of Muslims youth. Fifth, madrasa is a breeding ground for terrorists.

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These assumptions are self-postulated and not backed by any empirical data. However, they are in tune with the views of all the political parties that unanimously confirm that the madrasa system of education needs reforms now according to NCPCR, they be ban.

Hard fact about Madrasas – The talk of banning the madrasa system of education that imparts modern education along with Islamic teaching has to be viewed after the perusal of some hard facts about madrasas that are as follows; not every Muslim child is enrolled in madrasas.  According to the Sachar Committee report, only 3 to 4 per cent of school-going Muslim children go to madrasas. Therefore, the notion that social backwardness of Indian Muslim is the cause of proliferation of madrasa is unattainable.

Only the poorest of the poor Muslim families send their children to madrasas (In states like West Bengal, poor Hindus also send their children to madrasas). Major attraction for madrasa is the guarantee of free education, free meals and lodging for the children enrolled there.

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The madrasas are run on zakat funds (a two-and-a-half per cent obligatory donation which every Muslim man and woman is required to deduct from his/her yearly savings in cash or kind). The fund is always short and teachers get salaries depending on the donations they collect from the community. Teaching subjects like Science, Math and Computer science is simply beyond the means of community funding.

As a result, madrasas should be viewed as a part of the literacy movement and not as an educational establishment. Madrasa are for those who otherwise cannot afford regular schools for many reasons. As such to expect madrasa to impart education like mainstream schools remains an unattainable idea. Madrasas are filling up the void left by the government schools especially in backward areas where a large Muslim community resides.

What purpose does Madrasa serve? Madrasa produces ‘Hafiz’, ‘Qari’ and ‘Aalim’ to fulfil the needs of over 20 crore Muslim community of India. Madrasa students become imams and muazzins in the mosques, teachers in madrasas and private Quran tutors for Muslim children enrolled in the mainstream schools.

Reputed madrasas are in tune with modern day requirements. Their graduates are found in the country’s top universities as students and faculty members. In University departments, like West Asian Studies, Islamic Studies, Arabic, Urdu and Persian there are teachers and students mostly from the madrassa background.

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Central universities like AMU, Jamia Millia Islamia, MANUU etc. recognize degrees of some reputed madrasas. Some universities even run bridge courses to take them into the mainstream education system. Of late, many private institutes have been established, mainly in the South, which are training and tutoring madrasa graduates to become professionals. In recent years such institutes have produced engineers, doctors, lawyers, journalists and even IAS and IPS officers from madrasa background.

It’s a fact that the government is a major employer of madrasa graduates. They fill certain vacancies in the Foreign Ministry and other offices of the government. A good number of them work as translators and interpreters in Delhi and foreign missions in the Arab world. Some of them are even promoted as diplomats. Corporates and private universities having business interest in the Gulf and Africa also employ the madrassa graduates. The health tourists that come from the Arabic speaking world need Madrasa educated persons as translators for medical reasons.

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Talk to any ‘Aalim’ of madrassa or listen to their sermons, they always advocate peace and universal brotherhood. They talk about ‘baadraan-e-watan’ (a reference to Hindus as ‘brothers of the nation’).  Therefore, contrary to the hate-filled claims of the Sangh Parivar that madrasas are ‘nurseries of terrorism’, they are in fact votaries of India’s unity in diversity.

It is because of the madrassa system of education, the Urdu language is surviving in India. India’s huge entertainment industry which includes Hindi films thrives on Urdu language and Madrasa education serves them well.

As such, madrasa-educated children get a fair chance to compete non-Muslim candidates in terms of employment in different sectors. However, employment for ordinary madrasa graduates is a problem but this problem is equally there for other educational institution graduates as well. This is about lack of employment generation and not of syllabus reforms in madrasas or banning the madrasas completely.

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Governments imitative in Modernizing Madrasas – In the aftermath of the Sachar Commission Report in 2006, the Ministry of Human-Resource Development in 2009 initiated the Scheme to Provide Quality Education in Madrasas (SPQEM). This is to introduce formal education, vocational training and establishing madrasas to become accredited study centres with the National Institute of Open Schooling.

The nature of implementation has varied from state to state, with the scheme being implemented in 18 states. It was most effective in primary education, which witnessed an increase in enrolment with the number of girl students being either equal to or more than that of boys in class.

The main objectives of the SPQEM are: a) to encourage Madrasas and Maktabs to introduce formal subjects i.e. Science, Mathematics, Social Studies, Hindi and English; b) to enable the children studying in Madrasas and Maktabs to achieve academic proficiency for classes I to XII; c) Madrasas/Maktabs/Dar-ul-Uloom to become accredited study centers with National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS); d) to provide opportunities of vocational training to the children in Madrasas/Maktabs/Dar-ul-Uloom aged above 14 years; and e) to strengthen Madrasa Board for monitoring and generating awareness.

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In addition, the Scheme for providing Education to Madrasas/Minorities (SPEMM), which comprises two previously existing schemes namely, SPQEM and Infrastructural Development in Minority Institutions (IDMI) has been transferred from Department of School Education & Literacy, Ministry of Education to this Ministry with effect from 1st April, 2021.

The government of India restructured the existing SPQEM and IDMI schemes in 2014-15 and designed an Umbrella Scheme for providing education to Madrasa/ Minorities with the nomenclature SPEMM. The funding pattern under SPEMM would be similar with other centrally sponsored schemes i.e., 90:10 for Northeast States, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and Uttarakhand, 100 per cent for UTs without legislature and 60:40 for the remaining States as far as SPQEM component is concerned. The funds available under SPQEM will be focused on the quality component of education.

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Under SPEMM, the objectives of SPQEM and the objectives of IDMI are to facilitate education of minorities by augmenting and strengthening school infrastructure in Minority Institutions (elementary/ secondary/ senior secondary schools) to expand facilities for formal education to children of minority communities.

The need for reforming madrasas has even been expressed by the National Commission of Minority Educational Institutions (NCMEI). In its report to the government, the NCMEI report recommended and suggested ways of introducing modern subjects in purely religious madrasas and argued that it would not be possible to do so without the creation of a central madrasa board. Even though the government tried building consensus around the issue of forming a national madrasa board, but gave in to the disapproval of religious conservative segments of the community.

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Why is Modernization of madrasa opposed? Those forcing the madrasa modernization agenda have never held any discussion with the stakeholders. The civilizing mission attitude of the White Britishers has seeped into the minds of the Shwaet Brahmins has triggered a backlash from the Muslim community which sees it as sinister design to interfere in their system of education. On the contrary, the Muslim community’s resistance to madrasa reforms sends a message to the government that they are against the modern system of education.

In 2006, the government tried to organize all the madrasas in India under a Central Madrasa Board, but there was huge resistance from the Muslim community. Many argued that the teaching of modern education is at cross purpose with the Islamic way of teaching. A section of the community argued that introducing modern subjects into the madrasa curriculum would dilute the very purpose of the madrasa education whose prime purpose is to impart religious education. Some argued that teaching of worldly affairs is not part of madrasa education and madrasa should only give religious teachings. Such protagonist view the government move to introduce modern subjects in the madrassa education as an intervention to dilute the very purpose of madrasas that it serves. Those in opposition fear that Madrasas may lose autonomy if the government embarks on Madrasa reform programe.

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The fact remains that most madrasas are run by the Muslim community and are privately funded; those opposing government intervention argue that the government can’t impose its will on autonomous institutions. They think even ‘recognized’ madrasas are unlikely to accept a syllabus which compromises core Islamic teachings for which Madrassa’s have been established. As such, the modernization plan of the madrasa can be challenged in the court.

The silver lining in the madrasa modernization plan is that the majority of them are controlled, directly or indirectly by people associated with either faction of Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, an organization which came into being during the freedom movement of India.  Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind that runs over 20,000 Deobandi madrasas in north India has set up a committee of Muslim scholars and educators to prepare a roadmap for introducing a modern curriculum to madrasa education. They have given consent to diversify the madrasa system of education considering the future employment prospects of the madrasa children.

In this background, the Uttar Pradesh government had recently conducted a first of its kind survey of madrasas in the state. The state government has received the findings from all the 75 districts but is yet to announce its policy regarding the madrasa system of education. The UP government says it wants to ‘modernize’ the syllabus of madrasas but the Muslim community is sceptical about such modernization plans. The religious leadership that oversees the Islamic seminaries had criticized the survey as yet another example of Islamophobia even though they assisted the officials who came for such surveys.

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Conclusion: In conclusion it can be said that Madrasa has become the pet theme of the party in power and its associates like the NCPCR. This is because such an idea suits the majoritarian ideology and suits its moral high ground of ‘civilizing mission’ of the Muslims.  The theme of closing down of the madrasa system has to take into consideration the various facets of the madrasa system of education that it serves. Those in power and authority should take the Muslim community on board and convince them about the honesty of their purpose of modernizing the madrasa system of education. In such a pursuit all the religious scholars should be taken on board along with modern Muslim intellectuals. In any such reform the basic structure of madrasa education should not be compromised. The system can only be remodeled keeping the religious sentiments of Muslim community in mind.

Finally a few submissions are made for the public policy makers for their consideration. First closing down the madrasa cannot solve all the problems of the entire Muslim community. Any such attempt should keep in mind the religious sentiments of the Muslim community. Let the religious scholars perform their duty and let the government play its role in developing the Muslim community but not at the expense of closing the madrasas. Last but not the least, let madrasa serve the basic needs of the Muslim community and it should not be made a playing field. The government can open more affordable schools in the Muslim neighbourhood for getting modern education to the Muslims. The government should allow the madrasa system to play the role of literacy drive of the community and on its part open more schools in the Muslim locality for modern education. There should be a perfect balance between the two systems i.e. religious education and modern education and both should coexist in perfect harmony.

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Curated and Compiled by Humra Kidwai

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