[Assam] Central Madarsa Board

[Dilip/Dil Deka]

What do you think of the government decision to step in? Is it infringement? Please note it has some bearing on Assam, if Assam remains a state in India. I don't think the proponents of sovereign Assam have thought about such practical and real issues. The devil is always in the details.
  Dilip
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                                            view print edition »  ARCHIVE »                     Home | Current Affairs | Opinion | Business | Engaged Circle | Culture & Society | Letters               [input]   [input]   [input]   [input]                     TEHELKA INITIATIVES: Critical Futures | Tehelka FoundationChallenge of India | Art for Freedom | Summit of the Powerless -->           function erase()      {    if( document.frm.q.value == "Search Tehelka" )     {     document.frm.q.value = "";     //document.Frm_India.nam.value== ""     document.frm.q.focus();       }    }                                    function addBookmark(title,url) {   if ( window.sidebar ) {   window.sidebar.addPanel(title, url,"");   } else if( document.all ) {   window.external.addFavorite( url, title);   } else if( window.opera & window.print ) {   return true;   }   }                     CURRENT AFFAIRS     Cover Story                      The Madarsa Monitor   Imposed regulation or
 sympathetic reform? The Centre’s new move on madarsas has provoked a divided response from the community. Shivam Vij reports
    Knowing the Quran, fearing the wrath of Allah, knowing how to conduct your life as a good Muslim, obeying your parents and helping the young to walk in the path of Islam, dealing with Muslims and non-Muslims, knowing the Islamic laws, practicing the call of the muezzin with the right nasal sound, and perhaps even running an Islamic seminary yourself. That is what a madarsa education prepares a Muslim student for. 
  In the columns of Urdu papers and the rooms of organisations of Muslim sects across the country, and also sometimes in the seminar rooms of Shastri Bhavan in Delhi, voices of dissent are loud and clear, as also those of assent, on the question of “madarsa modernisation”. While those opposing state-driven madarsa modernisation are wary of interference of any kind, those favouring such intervention argue for the need to bring madarsa students out from the world of religious education into one of computers and globalisation.
  In its 2004 election manifesto, the Congress promised that it will set up a Central madarsa board, taking its cue from such boards in the states, including one that was set up by former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh. Within a few months, the Manmohan Singh government constituted the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions (NCMEI) headed by a former Delhi High Court judge, Justice MSA Siddiqui. The Commission took up the cause of a Central madarsa board in earnest and this was endorsed a year later by the Rajindar Sachar Committee Report on the social, educational and economic status of Muslims. The NCMEI has submitted a report along with a draft Bill to the Union human resource development ministry and the process of placing it in Parliament has been set in motion in Shastri Bhavan. 
  Imran Kidwai of the Congress’ minority cell says he is more than certain that the Bill would become an Act much ahead of the 2009 general elections. Going by Justice Siddiqui’s emphasis on the popularity of the idea amongst the “aam Musalman” as opposed to the clerics with their “vested interests”, it is clear that the government thinks that financial aid to madarsas, with the promise of higher education and employment for its students, will appeal to the masses. “Ask not the madarsas but Muslim parents,” says Kidwai, “and they will tell you they are happy about the move.”
  Although the idea of “madarsa modernisation”, with funds and schemes for it in the five-year plans, is not new, a Central madarsa board on the lines of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) would make it formal — bringing science, maths, computers and English into the curriculum and conducting examinations and issuing school-leaving degrees at par with the CBSE’s, which would help madarsa students get admission in any undergraduate course. Affiliating with the board would be optional for madarsas, but would bring financial incentives of the sort that Justice Siddiqui hopes would make most madarsas sign up. This includes, most crucially, bringing the salaries of madarsa teachers at par with government teachers. 
  Regular funding of the board from the government could affect the proposed board’s autonomy — to be guaranteed by legislation — and so the draft Bill asks for a Rs 500 crore corpus fund, half of which would be invested by the board, with help from financial advisors, in agriculture and industry to generate returns. Furthermore, donations to affiliated madarsas would be routed through the board. Madarsas are charitable organisations that run on local and foreign donations. Control over this purse is what the madarsas don’t want, and many are not convinced despite the NCMEI having put a clause that the madarsa accounts won’t be audited, that their “deeni” or religious education won’t be affected, and that they would be free to revoke their affiliation anytime they want. 
  But the ulema is unwilling to accept the idea. “Any change in the madarsa curriculum and administration must come from within the community and not from any government legislation,’’ says the influential Kerala Sunni leader Kanthapuram AP Abubacker Musaliar. Liberal scholars don’t agree. “Madarsa education in Kerala and outside is unscientific and rude,’’ responded NP Hafiz Mohammed, head of the department of sociology at Farooq College, an Islamic educational institution with deemed university status at Feroke near Kozhikode. “We need reforms. I don’t care who introduces it,” Hafiz said.
  south Asia’s most important Islamic seminary, the Deoband, has rejected the idea; its Vice Chancellor, Maulana Marghubur Rehman Qasmi, says the idea of the board is “the antithesis of the soul of madarsas”. In 2002, Muslim organisations in Karnataka didn’t let the government set-up a madarsa board. The All India Muslim Personal Law Board, the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Jamiat-e-Ulema Hind have also opposed the move. 
  In the Muslim-dominated state of Jammu and Kashmir, Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said madarsa reform should come from within the community. “As far as the government’s direct interference is concerned, there will be a public reaction against it,” Farooq said. Mufti Bashir-u-Din, the head of the Shariat Board of Kashmir, however, welcomed the move. “It is a very good proposal. We don’t want episodes like Lal Masjid over here,” he said.
  Islamic scholar Yoginder Sikand points out that many madarsas have been responding to the changing times. Indeed, the Darul Uloom Deoband’s syllabus includes modern Indian history, general sciences, health care, the Indian Constitution and computer education. But Maulvi A. Mohammed Khan Baqavi, who taught for many years in the Baqiyath Salihath Arabic College in Vellore, says, “The syllabus being followed in madarsas is many centuries old. According to a lesson in astronomy that is being taught to students, the planets of the universe and the sun revolve around the earth. Madarsas need to update their syllabus.”
  Arshad Amanullah, who went to a madarsa in Varanasi for his basic schooling and is a post-graduate in mass communications from Jamia Milia Islamia, has been researching madarsas. He says that a regular reading of the Urdu papers shows that the opposition to the idea is on the decline and the letters columns, in particular, express consistent support. 
  Proponents of the idea of madarsa regulation point towards what is perhaps the only success story at the state level — West Bengal, which even has a state minister for madarsa education. As a result of introduction of modern curriculum, one in four madarsa students in West Bengal is non-Muslim. But that is exactly the problem for some. In a November 2006 meeting of the NCMEI in Delhi, Professor MH Jawahirullah, president of the Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam, had pointed out that the “basic character” of madarsas should not be affected. “The upa government is friendly to Muslims and minorities and so could be trusted to some extent. But what if the BJP comes to power in the centre? Can’t they misuse the board to interfere in the functioning of madarsas?” he asks.
  That apprehension is bolstered by the media stereotype of the madarsa, which is referred to as little more than a “breeding ground for terrorism”, and madarsas on the Nepal and Bangladesh borders are said to be terrorism-friendly. Interestingly, the BJP favours the move. Spokesperson Prakash Javadekar told Tehelka, “The details of the proposal are yet to be seen but there is no doubt that Muslims going to madarsas need to be brought into the mainstream.” BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, however, said the board will keep Muslims in the chains of books that are hundreds of years old, and accused the government of reversing the nda government’s efforts to push madarsa education towards the mainstream. “Fanatical forces will use this board for political purposes,” he said.
  Madarsas fear that the move will willy-nilly be used to monitor and regulate them. The Jamiatul Hidaya Madarsa of Jaipur, which is said to be amongst the most modern, for instance, already complains of being subjected to investigations every now and then. The madarsa, which runs vocational courses ranging from mechanical engineering to journalism, says it is being denied permission by the Rajasthan government to set up a large campus.
  There is opposition from some quarters to the move for other reasons. Political scientist Zoya Hasan wonders why religious schools such as the ones run by the rss are not being regulated, and noted historian Irfan Habib says secular education cannot in fact be combined with religious education and that this is against the Constitution. “The government cannot neglect its responsibility of running modern schools,” he says, adding that quality and standards will suffer if secular education is half-heartedly implemented in madarsas. 
  Abdul Qayoom Al-Aman of Assam’s madarsa board, set up in 1934, said it was “a wonderful opportunity for us to integrate modern education with Islamic teachings. This will also help in reducing much of the blame labelled against the madarsas.” But most madarsas in the Northeast, as in the rest of India, follow the syllabus of the Deoband, which has opposed the move so far. But voices like Al-Aman’s are growing. In particular, scholars of the Barelvi school and the Nadwatul Ulma Madarsa in Lucknow support the move. The government is trying to use these voices to bring about a consensus by the time the Bill gets Cabinet assent.
  Although only 4 percent school-going Muslims go to madarsas, that is a large number of students. Another 4 percent go to maktabs, which are libraries where they learn Urdu and Arabic apart from the usual schooling. By opening up options for madarsa students, the Central madarsa board could bridge many gaps for them — and not just those of employment. As the Sachar report pointed out, “The modernisation scheme is also designed to make them aware of what is considered the domain of secular learning and enable them to participate in interfaith dialogues.” 

  With inputs from Teresa Rehman, Anand ST Das, Peerzada Arshad Hamid, PC Vinoj Kumar, KA Shaji and M. Radhika

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