State Policies on Muslim Education: A Re-Appraisal
Yoginder Sikand
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 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 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.
There is much more that can be said about the merits
or otherwise of the state' policies on madrasa
reforms. But, instead of going into that, I would like
to make some concrete suggestions, based on my
interactions with the ulema of different schools of
thought in various parts of the country. Firstly,
efforts must be made to 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 marginalized
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 programs 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 progams 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.
