State Policies on Madrasas and Muslim Education:

That Muslims, as a whole, are one of the most deprived communities in India, including in terms of education, is a well-known fact. Discussions about Muslim educational deprivation or 'backwardness', as it is sometimes referred to, often revolve around the issue of madrasas. Even government policies on Muslim education reflect this concern with madrasas. Often, announcements by various governments about schemes for Muslim education deal almost wholly with madrasa education. This, what one can call inordinate obsession with madrasas, urgently needs to be critiqued.

An oft-heard argument is that Muslims are themselves responsible for their own educational 'backwardness' as they prefer to send their children to madrasas rather than to 'modern' schools. The assumption here is that Muslims are somehow so 'fanatic' about their religion or that they see their religion as so fiercely opposed to 'modernity' that they simply do not want, or refuse, to send their children to 'modern' schools. Muslims thus come to be framed, interpreted and understood solely in terms of religion, in a manner that is vastly different from the way the behavior of other religious communities is understood. In this way, Muslims also come to be blamed entirely for their own educational marginalisation, and the fact that widespread Muslim poverty and the role of the wider society and the state in perpetuating Muslim economic and educational deprivation is completely ignored. This assumption runs as a hidden sub-text that underlies government policies on Muslim education. Since Muslim education thus comes to be reduced largely to madrasa education, government policies generally focus on this sort of education alone.

This assumption is, however, baseless and urgently needs to be questioned. For one thing, as the Sachar Committee Report shows, hardly four per cent of Muslim children study in full-time madrasas. Secondly, many Muslim parents choose to send their children to madrasas simply because they cannot afford the cost of sending them to 'modern' private schools or because they feel that a madrasa education will at least ensure their child a job as a religious specialist as well as merit in the Hereafter, neither of which education in a government school can provide. Thirdly, this assumption ignores the fact of the growing eagerness among Muslims for 'modern' education, and in fact, the growing involvement of Muslim religious organizations in seeking to provide both 'modern' as well as Islamic education to Muslim children. This development is easily observable in any Muslim locality, with the mushrooming of private schools, often so-called English medium schools. This phenomenon is, in a sense, also a reflection of the dissatisfaction that many Muslims feel with the public school system, whose ethos and curriculum is, in many cases, Hinduistic and sometimes even hostile to Muslims.

This means that the notion that Muslims are so wedded to madrasa education that government policies on Muslim education must be primarily concerned with madrasas is wholly fallacious. Clearly, if only four per cent of Muslim children go to full-time madrasas, and if many of these do so for want of access to 'modern' education or because of the apprehension that many Muslim parents have of the Hinduistic ethos of schools or of the discrimination that many Muslims report at the hands of teachers in such schools, instead of seeking to intervene in the madrasa system in the way it has done so far, the state must provide better and cheaper 'modern' schools in Muslim localities and address anti-Muslim biases, a task that it has largely failed in doing.

There is yet another reason why the inordinate interest of the state in madrasa education and its 'reform' needs to be critiqued. As many ulema, managers of the madrasas, see it, the intentions of the state in seeking to 'reform' the madrasas are not beyond suspicion. They see this talk of 'reform' as motivated by what they regard as an ulterior motive of interfering in and controlling the madrasas, and, consequently, undermining their autonomy and their Islamic ethos and identity. They point out that talk of madrasa 'reforms' gathered particular momentum during the rule of the BJP at the Centre, when, following the release of a report on national security, demands began made for the state to intervene in the madrasas in order to combat 'terrorism', based on the misleading contention that Indian madrasas are 'hotbeds' of 'terror'. They look at how the demands for madrasa 'reform' by various governments, such as that of the United States, as well as it client regimes, such as Pakistan, are linked to their quest to control and quash opposition movements. They see these demands as hypocritical, since it was precisely these governments that funded and promoted radicalism in certain Pakistani madrasas in the wake of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. They thus argue that the state is not sincere in its protestations of being concerned about 'reforming' the madrasas. If the state is serious about countering 'terrorism', they ask, why is it not seeking to similarly 'reform' the vast chain of schools run by right-wing Hindutva forces throughout the country, which, unlike the Indian madrasas, openly preach hatred against other communities, particularly Muslims and Christians?

There is now much talk about the Central Madrasa Board that has been mooted by Justice Sohail Aijaz Siddiqui of the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions. Although it has been made clear that madrasas can affiliate to the proposed Board voluntarily and that the Board will not interfere in the functioning of affiliated madrasas, a large section of the ulema have opposed the proposal. There is some merit in the arguments of both the proponents as well as opponents of the proposed Board, but that need not detain us here. The point is that, as considerable opposition to the proposal indicates, the state should seek to evolve a consensus with the ulema on what it can or should do regarding madrasas, rather than imposing anything on the madrasas in the name of 'reforms'. In the absence of this, and without the cooperation of the ulema, schemes for madrasas funded by the state are unlikely to be effective.

As far as state intervention or participation in madrasa education is concerned, clearly the scope is limited. The state, if it is indeed serious about helping the madrasas, could arrange for more universities to recognize madrasa degrees. This will help broaden the career prospects of madrasa graduates as well as help expose them to aspects of social reality that they have been sheltered from. At present, only a few universities, particularly those with some sort of historical Muslim association, do so. For this purpose, madrasas may be encouraged to arrange for their students to simultaneously enroll in open school examinations. Further, senior madrasa students could be encouraged to enroll in courses offered by open universities. At present, there is a distinct lack of awareness among the ulema and madrasa students about these possibilities. Literature about this should be made readily available to the madrasas, particularly in Urdu. The state could also launch scholarship schemes for madrasa students who enroll in universities.

In universities that recognize madrasa degrees, special free or subsidised English classes can be organized for students from madrasa backgrounds. For students enrolled in madrasas, the National Council for Promotion of the Urdu Language could consider preparing special texts and related study material for social sciences and English that are based on and reflect their particular cultural worldviews. The state could also open technical training centres attached to madrasas, which could cater to madrasa students or graduates. Non-governmental organizations, Muslim as well as others, can be encouraged by the state to work along with madrasas on common projects, including those funded by the state. In these and other ways, the state would be able to play a positive role with respect to madrasas without being open to the accusation of seeking to interfere in the madrasa system.

To repeat a point made earlier, the state must make the promotion of 'modern' education among Muslims its priority in place of seeking to directly intervene in the field of madrasa education. This calls for many more good quality public schools in Muslim areas, scholarship schemes for Muslim students, hostels for girls and boys in Muslim localities and so on, on the lines of similar programs for similarly marginalised communities such as Dalits and Adivasis. In addition, the government's general schemes for education must have some sort of Muslim component to ensure that adequate funds are allocated to Muslim localities. There also needs to be a social audit of institutions set up and programmes launched by the Central and state governments that are meant for minority welfare and education. No reliable research has been done on precisely what these institutions and progammes have actually done, in practical terms, for promoting Muslim education.

It is obvious that the welfare and development of the country as a whole itself demands that the state pay much more attention that it has hitherto done to Muslim education. But for this, the state must move beyond mere symbolic vote-grabbing sops. Ultimately, however, it is for Muslim community leaders to creatively engage with the state and non-governmental organizations to make Muslim education a priority, both in their demands on the state as well as in their own involvement with the community.