Economic and Political Weekly, Bombay, 1st of September 2001

Dear Saima,

Salam aleikum - not all Indian sources are biased ... kindest regards to
you. Your comments and corrections are always interesting, and I want to
listen, listen and listen again! This article seems to be interesting, also
for our Colorado network

kindest regards 

Arno Tausch

http://www.epw.org.in/

Targeting Muslim Religious Schools 
Yoginder Sikand 
 <<...OLE_Obj...>> 
Ever since the present BJP-led coalition assumed power at the centre, there
has been a coincident spate of attacks on Muslim madrasas, mosques and
dargahs, in various parts of the country. Top Hindutva leaders have issued
statements alleging that the Pakistani secret service agency, ISI, has
infiltrated into numerous madrasas all over the country, particularly in
districts lying along the country's borders with Pakistan, Nepal and
Bangladesh. A detailed report issued by the Indian intelligence agencies,
reproduced in the Mumbai-based monthly Communalism Combat (August 2000),
claims that some of these madrasas are, in the name of providing religious
education to Muslim children, actually serving as training grounds for ISI
spies and anti-Indian 'terrorists'. The fear is expressed that in future the
muftis, maulvis and imams in these Muslim religious schools may be replaced
by what it calls 'highly fanatic agents of ISI', who might secretly work for
the break-up of the country. In recent months, government agencies have
started targeting madrasas in various parts of the country, ostensibly to
combat the alleged ISI presence. According to the Delhi-based Urdu monthly
Islamic Movement (August 2001), in May 2001, the government-appointed
ministerial group for the 'reform of internal security', headed by home
minister Advani, released a 137-page report that recommends, among other
things, a close scrutiny of madrasas, alleging that some of these could be
used as centres of subversion by anti-Indian elements. The fear has been
expressed that by preaching 'religious fundamentalism', they could thereby
undermine inter-communal harmony and also endanger the country's security.
Accordingly, several madrasas are now being regularly visited by the police,
who are carefully monitoring their activities. 
In Uttar Pradesh, home to the largest number of Muslims of India, hundreds
of madrasas are said to be now under close watch. According to a recent
report published by the Delhi-based Muslim fortnightly, Milli Gazette
(August 1-15, 2001) a circular allegedly issued by the UP state government
suggests that Hindutva elements are seriously preparing the ground for what
the magazine calls a 'communal civil war' in the state. The circular (no
ST/SSP32/2001/4140, May 2001 is signed by B B Bakhshi, SSP, Lucknow) has
been issued to the state police as a guideline to keep a vigil on 'ISI
activities'. The ISI, the circular is quoted as alleging, is 'leaving no
stone unturned' to disrupt life in the state, and is 'luring' Muslim and
Sikh youth 'to involve them in subversive activities', besides fanning
anti-Hindu sentiments. To counter this alleged ISI threat, the circular
instructs that every SHO should 'prepare a register of Muslim and Sikh
families living in his respective area'. In particular, a list of
newly-constructed madrasas and mosques should be kept and they should be
closely monitored. 
Predictably, Muslim organisations have been quick to register their protest
against the allegation thus levelled against the madrasas. The Milli
Gazette, on its part, which sent a team to inspect several madrasas along
the Nepal-India border accused of having been infiltrated by the ISI,
reported that none of the dozen Muslim seminaries that the team visited had
any association whatsoever with the ISI. Some of their students had not even
heard the name of the dreaded Pakistani secret service agency. In not a
single of these madrasas was any sort of physical instruction, leave alone
military training, being imparted. Yet, several of them complained of being
regularly visited and, sometimes, harassed by the police. The Milli Gazette
report adds that these madrasas have no history at all of promoting
Hindu-Muslim conflict. In fact, one of them has several Hindu students and
teachers on its rolls, while another one has several regular Hindu donors
('Nepal-Border Madrasas: No Iota of 'Terrorism' or 'ISI' Activity', S
Ubaidur Rahman, Milli Gazette, July 16-31, 2001). The Milli Gazette also
points out that, despite his allegations of several madrasas along the
Indo-Nepal border being used as ISI bases, former UP chief minister, Ram
Prakash Gupta, was unable to identify even a single such Muslim school. ('In
Which Madrasa Is Training for Subversion Imparted?: UP Chief Minister Unable
to Reply', Milli Gazette, Vol 1, No 19). Uttar Pradesh's director-general of
police, Sriram Arun, while arguing that the ISI was active along the
Indo-Nepal border, is said to have denied allegations that it was using
madrasas as hideouts ('Top UP Cop: No ISI Presence in Madrasas', Milli
Gazette). Likewise, the Milli Gazette reports, the director general of
police of Rajasthan, another border state, admitted that the madarsas in the
border areas are 'neither centres of ISI nor have they ever participated
till date in any anti-national activities' ('No ISI Activity in Rajasthan
Border Madrasas, Milli Gazette, Vol 2, No 3). 
There are several thousand Islamic schools spread all across India today.
Most mosques have a primary religious school or maktab attached to them,
where Muslim children learn the Qur'an and the basics of their faith. For
children who desire to specialise in religious studies and train as imams
and maulvis, numerous large seminaries or madrasas exist, each Muslim sect
having its own chain of such institutions. For many poor families, madrasas
are the only source of education for their children, since they charge no
fees and provide free boarding and lodging to their students. Given what is
said to be the dismal level of educational provision for Muslims, added to
which is the perceived anti-Muslim bias that is being sought to be
incorporated into the curricula in government schools, madrasas are often
the only available option for the education of children from poor Muslim
families. Madrasas have for long played an important role in promoting
literacy among the Muslims, who have the dubious distinction of being, along
with the neo-Buddhist dalits, the least educated community in India. 
Role of Madrasas 
Nor have madrasas lagged behind in working for the cause of the country as a
whole. In fact, graduates from madrasas as well as founders of some of the
leading Muslim seminaries in India played an important role in the struggle
against the British, a fact that is often ignored in certain school history
textbooks. Leading 'ulema-led uprisings against the British in the mid-19th
century and even later, reformist 'ulema kept aloft the banner of defiance
in the Pathan borderlands till they were forcibly put down by the British.
Madrasa teachers and students, such as Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi and Maulana
Barkatullah Khan Bhopali, were among the first few Indians to demand
complete freedom for India - this in complete contrast to the pro-British
policy of both Hindu as well as Muslim communalist groups. Most madrasas
vehemently opposed the Muslim League and its two-nation theory, demanding a
united India where people of different faiths could live together in
harmony. 
This is not to say that all is well with the madrasas today. Many madrasas
in Pakistan, for instance, have now emerged as breeding grounds for
self-styled jihadists, including the Taliban in Afghanistan and the
Lashkar-e-Toiba in Kashmir. In fact, it seems that the experience of these
madrasas in Pakistan has fuelled the fear of the madrasas in India going the
same way. But, critics argue, this fear might indeed be misplaced as there
is little or no evidence of any Indian madrasas being actually involved in
ISI-related activities. Speaking at a recently organised seminar on the
madrasa system and quoted in the Milli Gazette, Maulana Obaidullah Khan
Azmi, MP, asserted that not a single madrasa had been found to be harbouring
ISI agents, adding that if any were in future found to be doing so, the
Muslims themselves would demand that it be shut down (Mazhar Imam, 'Madrasas
and Future of Indian Muslims', Milli Gazette, August 1-15, 2001). 
Instead of targeting the madrasas as potential sources of instability, a
far-sighted government could have used them to help improve India's
relations with Muslim countries and even to help influence the policies of
countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan towards India. Indian madrasas, such
as the Dar-ul 'Ulum, Deoband, the Mazahir-ul 'Ulum, Saharanpur and the
Nadwat-ul 'Ulama, Lucknow, are widely respected all over the Muslim world,
the first mentioned being the largest madrasa in the whole of Asia and the
second largest in the world. Many Muslims in neighbouring Afghanistan,
Pakistan and Bangladesh follow the school of thought established by these
madrasas. If the state had sought to work in tandem with these madrasas,
they could well have served important foreign policy goals of the country by
helping to combat the radical appeal of the so-called jihadist elements
within Pakistan, while assuaging Muslim fears of a threat to their identity
and their religious freedom in India. That the Hindutva camp has chosen to
do otherwise is hardly surprising, however. The orchestrated campaign
against the madrasas can also be seen as yet another assault on the rights
of the Muslims and on institutions basic to the preservation and promotion
of their faith and their sense of identity, this being integral to the
fiercely anti-Muslim Hindutva world view. 
Not many critics of the madrasas would probably have themselves ever visited
a madrasa, and so much of what they say is pure hearsay. Yet, it may indeed
be true that in some madrasas students are taught to see all non-Muslims in
far from flattering colours, as irredeemable infidels, as rebels against god
doomed to perdition in hell and so on. That understanding of the 'other' is,
needless to say, something that they share with Hindutva militants, whose
image of Muslims is no less lurid. A critical examination of, for instance,
the fiery rhetoric of the Lashkar-e-Toiba or the Students Islamic Movement
of India, on the one hand, and groups like the RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal, on
the other, would reveal how much they share in common, despite their
apparent differences - an undying hostility to democracy and secularism, an
incurable allergy to pluralism, and a total lack of genuine tolerance for
people of other faiths, for instance. The only way people of different
faiths can learn to see each other as fellow human beings deserving respect
is by promoting inter-faith dialogue and liberal understandings of religion
indispensable for harmonious co-existence in a plural society such as ours.
Unfortunately, the crusade against the madrasas will guarantee that this
does not happen, for the myth of an irreconcilable hostility between Hindus
and Muslims is as central to radical Islamist discourse as it is to the
Hindutva world view. The targeting of the madrasas can only play into the
hands of both Hindu as well as Islamic militants, and further reduce the
already faint prospects of Muslim-Hindu inter-faith dialogue - and, with it,
the possibility of changing the way some madrasa students might be taught to
look at people of other faiths. 
If madrasas continue to be targeted there would also be little hope for them
to be able to drag themselves out of the morass in which they find
themselves today. Having met several madrasa students and teachers myself, I
am aware that many of them are now increasingly concerned with what they see
as their outdated and increasingly irrelevant curriculum and methods of
teaching. As a leading Indian Muslim social activist and intellectual,
Nejatullah Siddiqui, writes in his recently published Urdu book Dini
Madaris: Masa'il Aur Taqazey (Religious Madrasas: Problems and Prospects),
there is a growing realisation among the Muslims of the pressing need for
madrasas to reform their syllabi to enable their students to face challenges
of modern life and to evolve a more relevant understanding of their faith.
But, many Muslims insist, this cannot be imposed by force. It is only in a
climate of peace and security, when Muslims are free from any perception of
threat to their faith and identity, that madrasas can begin a process of
reform. Instigating attacks against them and fanning flames of anti-Muslim
terror would not only dampen all hopes for reform but might even make the
fear of militancy a self-fulfilling prophecy. Surely, then, the best way to
put to rest fears of madrasas turning into militant havens is to allay
Muslim insecurities, and to spare no efforts at guaranteeing that every
community feels safe and protected. But with Hindutva militants brazenly
determined to fan anti-Muslim hatred and dividing the country against
itself, and with radical Islamist groups in turn, adding fuel to the fire,
that itself seems a distant hope.