This slim book presents the results of a survey conducted by the author, a researcher associated with the Indian Social Institute, New Delhi, of a number of madrasas situated along the Indo-Nepal border, in the states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. The geographical scope of the book is significant and deliberately chosen, given the allegations leveled against madrasas in these areas of being involved in promoting terrorism and as being in league with the dreaded Pakistan secret services’ agency, the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI). Many of these madrasas are regularly visited by the police, and are under close surveillance.

The book is divided into three broad sections. The first section discusses the importance of education in Islam and provides a history of the institution of the madrasa in India, from the period of the Delhi Sultanate till 1947. Here Alam does not provide anything new, simply rehashing material that is available elsewhere in numerous books already written on the subject. Seeking to combat widely held notions of Muslim ‘disloyalty’, he rightly mentions that numerous ‘ulama from the madrasas, particularly those associated with the Deoband school of thought, played a crucial role in the anti-colonial movement, opposing the British as well as the Muslim League’s demand for Pakistan.

However, he presents the ‘ulama as a homogenous category, as if they all were unanimous in support of a united India and of a composite nationalism. He conveniently ignores several enormously influential ‘ulama, such as those associated with the Jama‘at-i Islami and the Barelvi school, who vociferously supported the Partition of India and the ‘two-nation’ theory of the Muslim League. Likewise, he also leaves unmentioned a minority among the Deobandis who did not conceal their support for the League.

The second section of the book deals with a range of issues concerning madrasas in contemporary India. Alam contends that the madrasas are today playing a major role in promoting education and literacy among poor Muslims. However, he questions the sort of education that most madrasas actually provide their students. He writes that several madrasas are now including modern subjects in their curriculum, a development that he wholeheartedly supports. Yet, he says, most madrasas have not made any major accommodation to modern knowledge, as a result of which their students know little about the contemporary world and, consequently, find it difficult, if not impossible, to find productive employment other than as imams in mosques and madrasa teachers.

Many madrasas even forbid their students from reading ‘worldly’ literature, because of which their students, once they graduate, cannot properly adjust to the outside world. The employment issue is crucial, however, Alam rightly insists, because most madrasa students come from poor families who send their children to madrasas in the hope that they would, in the future, be able to supplement their meagre family incomes. He argues that probably the majority of students are sent to madrasas not because of a passionate commitment to Islam but simply out of economic compulsion. He critiques diehard conservatives among the ‘ulama for opposing the inclusion of modern subjects in the madrasas in order to preserve their own vested interests, arguing that such ‘ulama are directly responsible, to a considerable extent, for the backwardness and stagnation of Muslim society.

The third section of the book presents the results of the survey that Alam claims to have undertaken of almost a hundred madrasas in the districts along the Indo-Nepalese border. After presenting the findings in the form of a series of tables, Alam concludes that there is no evidence of madrasas in these areas being involved in promoting terrorism. Critics and defenders of the madrasas may continue to debate about the veracity of this claim, but the methodology that Alam employs in the survey is deeply flawed. We are provided simply with cold statistics drawn from the questionnaires that Alam claims to have administered to some 3500 people.

The respondents’ own voices and the finer nuances of their responses find no space here, and all we get are ‘yes’ and ‘no’ as replies to a range of questions. Clearly, the questionnaire method is quite inappropriate for a study of this sort, which should have taken the form of in-depth interviews instead. One gets no feeling or sense that Alam has actually met with 3500 people and visited almost a hundred madrasas at all. This writer, for one, tends to agree with Alam’s claim that madrasas are not engaged in actively promoting terrorism.

In fact, Hindutva forces, who routinely demonize madrasas as dens of terror, have yet to come up with the firm evidence of a single madrasa in India of this sort. RSS-schools, which number in their thousands, are more deserving of the label of factories of hate than the Indian madrasas. However, what Alam completely ignores, willfully or otherwise, is the fact that many madrasas promote an extremely insular worldview, in which non-Muslims and their religions are often depicted in an extremely negative way, sometimes even as ‘enemies’ of God. The fierce denunciations of other faiths, and the constant refrain of non-Muslims allegedly plotting to destroy Islam, does little good at all in helping to promote better inter-community relations. In fact, as in the case of several Pakistani madrasas, such a mindset can be used to fan hatred and violence against other communities and even against other Muslim sects.

The concluding part of the book is somewhat more interesting, however. Alam pleads for modernization of the madrasas, but argues, echoing the views of most ‘ulama, that the state’s professed interest in promoting such modernisation is suspect and that it is actually aimed at diluting their religious identity. It is for the madrasas themselves to take the initiative in modernising, he contends. He sees hope in the fact that most madrasa students and their parents do, in fact, want modern subjects to be included in the madrasa syllabus, although many madrasa managers might oppose this proposal, seeing this as threatening to undermine their own privileges and authority. Another major problem in this regard, Alam says, is shortage of funds to employ teachers of such subjects. Alam makes a list of suggestions to help promote the modernization agenda that he sees as indispensable for the madrasas. Some of these are realistic but others are simply utopian, for want of a better word.

Thus, he suggests that the Ministry of Human Resources Development should establish a central board of madrasa education which should ensure that the madrasas be modeled on government central schools. The madrasas should be affiliated to this board, instead of to state boards of madrasa education (but why, he does not say). Three-fourth of the syllabus should consist of the course prescribed by the National Council for Educational Research and Training, the rest being devoted to traditional religious learning. Half the seats in the madrasas should be reserved for girl students. These are ambitious proposals, of course, but about the virulent opposition that they are bound to encounter from the ‘ulama Alam has nothing to say.

More sensible and less unrealistic suggestions that Alam has to offer include state funding for madrasa modernisation through NGOs and panchayati raj institutions; a law to punish newspapers and individuals who make false allegations against the madrasas; a separate budget for the development of minority institutions; madrasa teachers’ training programmes and literacy drives among Muslims. To all these obviously welcome suggestions Alam could have been added the urgent need for a thorough revaluation and revision of the content of the syllabus madrasa beyond simply the inclusion of certain modern subjects.

As many Muslim modernists themselves continue to plead (despite being ignored or dubbed as ‘agents’ of the ‘unbelieving’ West by the ‘ulama) there is a strong case to be made for active intervention to address such troubling issues as the fierce sectarianism, the negative images of non-Muslims, and the misogynist understandings of Islamic law that are strongly defended by the conservative ‘ulama and that are reinforced and reproduced in many madrasas. Unless these core issues are also taken up in earnest, the other reforms that Alam has suggested would appear to serve little purpose.

Overall, the book provides a broad survey of madrasa education in India which readers who are not familiar with numerous similar books already available might find useful. It is not a major contribution to the existing corpus of writings on madrasas, however, although clearly the publishers feel otherwise since they have translated and published the book in Hindi and English as well. The book contains numerous factual errors which clearly suggests the author’s own lack of familiarity with the subject that he attempts to deal with. Thus, he claims, without citing any evidence, that 80 per cent of Indian Muslim children below the age of 15 study in madrasas (p.82), and that 10 crore (that is, 100 million) Hindus and Muslims migrated in the wake of the Partition (p.32).

Alam contradicts himself when, at one point, he attributes the mushrooming of madrasas in India in recent decades to petrodollars, but elsewhere insists that few madrasas have received financial aid from Arab donors. Several of his statements are also tendentious and are clearly in the apologetic mode. Thus, he rightly castigates conservative Americans and their Hindutva counterparts for painting Muslims in the most lurid colours, but at the same time he conveniently ignores the fact that similar images of the non-Muslim religious ‘other’ are shared by a number of Muslims, especially among Islamist groups, and are also reflected in the writings of numerous ‘ulama associated with several madrasas. It appears that the author’s passionate urge to defend the madrasas from criticism far outweighs his commitment to dispassionate scholarship.


Copyright©2005 Yoginder Sikand. About the author