By D. Bandyopadhyay
The Indian nation cannot march forward with a major segment of its largest minority group remaining backward, illiterate, unenlightened and weak. It is the duty of every section of Indian society to help in the mainstreaming of this section. But the issue of modernisation of madrasa education brings up the vested interests of fundamentalist elements trying to protect their turf and the political system which strives to utilise the backward for electoral gain. Strangely, the interests of the non-secular religious groups and those of the so-called ’secular and progressive’ politicians merge, reinforcing one another.
Life of Vedvyas Krishna Dwaipayan, the author of the Mahabharat was not known to me. I learnt about it from a novelette by Shajad Firdausi, a Bengali litterateur. Firdausi’s language is elegant and chaste. His presentation of the theme does justice to the all-time classic, the Mahabharat. It is a piece of literature in Bengali which is likely to transcend itself into a classic in time to come. I am born a Hindu Brahmin belonging to the Sandilya clan ('gotra'). And as the name indicates, Shajad Firdausi is a Muslim by birth. But as a Muslim he had no compunction in delving into the mysteries of the genesis of a classic of the ‘infidels’. Nor did I have any problem in savouring the sweet richness of the literary creation of a ‘mlechha’. Both these have been possible because of the secular education that we had and, perhaps, the liberal ambience in which we grew up in our early days.
The issue is being raised because of the widespread controversy regarding madrasa education now going on not only in India but also in the west, particularly after the events of September 11, 2001. Whether any anti-national or illegal activities are being carried on or not in these madrasas is for the authorities to enquire. It is hoped that in doing so the functionaries would be objective and would not be swayed by communal feelings or considerations.
No one can accuse Buddhadev Bhattacharyya, chief minister of West Bengal, of communalism. In fact, the opposition in West Bengal always accuses the Left Front (LF) of pampering the minorities for electoral gain. Yet Buddhadev Bhattacharyya made a few statements in January stating that there had been an alarming increase in the number of madrasas in the border areas of the state, largely financed by petro-dollars. He suggested that these unregistered and therefore unauthorised madrasas should be investigated, both with regard to their sources of finance and the types of activities they carried on. His partial retraction of these statements later is a different issue. But as a person in charge of the governance of the state what he said could not be ignored.
It is often alleged that the LF has been ignoring the issue of illegal migration of minorities from across the border for far too long. Perhaps to prove their credentials as a non-communal coalition of left forces, they have been too soft on this issue even to the point of overlooking the established laws on the subject. There are now six districts in West Bengal where the ‘minority’ constitutes the ‘majority’. Though the Bangladesh authorities would strongly contest the point, no observer can ignore the unusual increase in the ‘minority’ community population in the border districts and in certain localities of the Calcutta metropolitan area. One can legitimately ask the question what happened to the substantial ‘Bihari’ population in Bangladesh, a community ostracised by the Bangladeshis for their anti-liberation role during the freedom struggle and abandoned by their godfather state of Pakistan? The sharp decrease in their number in Bangladesh can only be explained by their clandestine migration to India mainly through West Bengal which has a large Hindi-Urdu speaking population. It is so easy to get mixed up with this population, making detection a near impossibility. That Calcutta became a safe haven for some anti-national elements became evident in the last couple of years when one noticed a sharp increase in cases of kidnapping for ransom and the recent shoot-out at the American Centre on the Chowringhee.
It is not my intention to recount these stories which have already been publicised with all frills and trappings in newspapers and magazines. The short point I would like to highlight is the type of pupils that madrasas turn out in our country. Is that education likely to make the students good and responsible citizens of our sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic, or make them incompatible with the basic values on which our republic rests? If it be latter, there would necessarily be some concern about the pedagogy and the content of such education.
Without going back into the history of Muslim rule in India, let us start our short survey from the beginning of the British raj. The board of directors of the East India Company in the early days of British domination in India, while sympathetic towards attempts to revive Indian learning, entertained no idea of introducing any system of education in the country. In 1781, however, Warren Hastings established the Calcutta Madrasah College for Muhammedans for the study of “Muhammedan law and such other sciences as were taught in Muhammedan schools”. In 1792 Jonathan Duncan, resident at Benares, obtained permission “to establish a college in the holy city for the preservation and alleviation of laws, literature and religion of Hindus, for recovering and collecting books on the most ancient and valuable general learning and tradition now existing in perhaps any part of the globe” (B Prashad, The Progress of Science in India during the Past Twenty-five Years, Indian Science Congress Association, Calcutta, 1938, pp vii-viii).
The point to be noted here is that both the Madrasah in Calcutta and the Sanskrit College at Benares had one common objective of study of Muhammedan and Hindu laws. Before the introduction of the Anglo-Saxon juridical system in India, the Company’s magistrates and judges had to depend on Hindu pandits and Muslim quazis for the administration of justice. Thus in spite of the general disinclination of the Company’s board of directors to introduce any system of education, the local government had to introduce both the Hindu and Mohammedan systems of education to perform the basic duty of administering law and justice. Incidentally, the Sanskrit College of Calcutta was established subsequently.
British Policy
The British followed the policy of strict neutrality in religious matters. In reply to an address by the Christian missionaries, Lord William Bentick, the governor-general, said, “The fundamental principle of the British rule, the compact to which the government stands solemnly pledged, is strict neutrality. In all schools and colleges supported by government, this principle cannot be too strongly enforced, all interferences and injudicious tampering with religious belief of the students, all mingling, direct or indirect teaching of Christianity with the system of instruction ought to be positively forbidden.” These views were affirmed in a Despatch of the Court of Directors dated April 13, 1858 (GoI, Report of the University Education Commission, Vol I, New Delhi, Chapter VIII, p 289).
The Education Commission of 1882 reiterated the same position. The Indian University Commission of 1902 and the Calcutta University Commission 1917-19 also maintained the same stance of religious neutrality “in view apparently of the difficulties of the problem in a country where religion seemed to be a source of strife and disunion” (ibid:290).
The Central Advisory Board, 1944-46, observed, “After fully considering all aspects of the question, the Board resolved that while they recognise the fundamental importance of spiritual and moral instruction in the building of character, the provision for such teaching except insofar as it can be provided in the normal course of secular instruction should be the responsibility of the home and the community to which the pupil belongs” (ibid:290).
Following the same tradition and logic the founding fathers of our Constitution incorporated Article 28 which, inter alia, states, “No religious instruction shall be provided in any educational institution wholly maintained out of state fund”. Inferentially, it can be argued that the state should not subsidise or fund any institution which imparts wholly religious teachings.
The Great Indian Mutiny of 1857 and the subsequent transfer of authority of governance of India from the John Company to the British Crown had a very peculiar impact on Muslim education in India. A large number of Muslim jaigirdars and landowners, particularly belonging to the erstwhile kingdom of Oudh taken over by the British by deposing Nawab Wazir Ali Shah, took part in the revolt. Some of them also thought of bringing back the Moghul rule by defeating the imperial power. After the crushing of the mutiny, ruthless revenge followed in which many Muslims along with Hindu landowners and petty chiefs suffered badly.
In the aftermath of the mutiny, having been alienated and distanced from the imperial power several social and religious trends emerged among the Indian Muslims in their bid to resurrect and revive their social and political standing vis-a-vis both the colonial power and the majority Hindus. Their dream of resuscitating Muslim rule in India through the last of the Moghuls, Bahadurshah, who died in exile in Burma having been dashed, the elites among the Muslims thought of different routes. They ranged from Deobandis to pro-western reformers who set up colleges such as Aligarh Muslim University based on the British model which would teach Islam and the liberal arts and sciences so that Muslim youth could catch up with the British rulers and compete with the established Hindu elites (Rashid Ahmed, Taliban - The Story of Afghan Warlords, Pan Books, London, 2000, pp 87-88).
Islamic social and political leaders in India identified education as the key to creating the modern Muslim. A large member of madrasas were set up in the latter half of the 19th century. Most important and famous among them were (source: Muslim India, October 21, 2001):
Darul Uloom, Deoband, 1866.
Mazaheral Uloom, Shaharanpur, 1866.
Madrasa Baqyatris Salehat, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, 1883.
Jamia Mazharul Uloom, Benares, 1893.
Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulema, Lucknow, 1894.
Madrasa Ameenia, Delhi, 1897.
Darul Uloom Khalilia Nizamia, Tonk, 1899.
Jamia Arabia Hayatul Uloom, Mubarakpur, 1899.
Madrasa-ul Islah, Sarai Mir, Azamgarh, 1909.
Jamia Darus Salam, Umnabad, 1924.
It is to be noticed that most of the well known madrasas were situated in UP. Before the partition UP had a large population of the Muslim elite. They took the lead in establishing these institutions as a part of their social and religious obligation to the community and simultaneously to create and enlarge their social and political base.
Deobandis
Among these madrasas, the one at Deoband created a niche for itself as the most puritan and orthodox seminary of Islamic theology. “The Deobandis aimed to train a new generation of learned Muslims who would revive Islamic values based on intellectual bearing, spiritual experience, Shariah law and Tariqah or the Path. By teaching their students how to interpret shariah, they aimed to harmonise the classical shariah texts with current realities” (Rashid Ahmed op cit, p 88). The Deobandis were very conservative in their approach. They took a restrictive view of the role of women and rejected the Shias. Students coming out of these ‘deeni’ madrasas (religious institutions) called ‘talib’ constituted a cadre of Islamic zealots. Deobandis set up madrasas all over India. By 1879 there were 12 Deobandi madrasas. By 1967 when the Deobandis celebrated their centenary they had 1,000 madrasas in south Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh).
After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Zia-ul Haq, the Chief Martial Law Administrator of
Pakistan set up a chain of deeni madrasas of the Deobandi school on the Pak-Afghan border. He did so to turn out highly motivated jihadis to support the Mujahideens fighting the Soviet forces. Madrasas of the Deoband School earned a reputation of producing fiercely fanatic Islamic zealots who would rather die in a jihad to go to paradise direct than live a normal life. The standard syllabi of such madrasas “include learning of the holy Koran by heart, tajweed (correct pronunciation of Koranic verses), tafseer (interpretation of holy scriptures), fiqah (Islamic Jurisprudence), shariah (Islamic law), ahadis (life and decisions of the holy Prophet on various issues brought before him by the faithful), mantiq (philosophy), riazi (mathematics) and falakiat (astronomy) and tabligh (spreading the word of god)” (Kamal Matinuddin, The Taliban Phenomenon, Afghanistan 1994-97, OUP, Karachi, 2000, p 15).
It is generally a 12-year course. A ‘talib’ is a student who has not completed the required number of years. But a mullah has to go through the designated number of years in a madrasa under different religious scholars. Only then a proper dastarbandi carried out and the recipient is entitled to carry the title mullah (Kamal Matinuddin, ibid, pp 15-16). Once a mullah, he could be an ‘imam’, ‘quazi’ or ‘khatib’ of a mosque or become a ‘quazi’. These madrasas not only imparted religious instructions of sorts, but more than that they organised students into militant groups who would use force to make their point. Motivated fighters came out of these deeni madrasas.
Not being a student of Islamic theology I feel handicapped to comment on the pedagogy and content of study in madrasas. “Muslims regard the Quran which means ‘the recitation’ as the eternal words of Allah himself. Thus Muhammad is the conduit of god’s words and not their composer for Muslims. God is one, indivisible and absolutely transcendent. For every Muslim, the presence of Allah can be experienced here and now through the very sounds and syllables of Arabic Quran. Thus only the original Arabic is used in prayer - even though the vast majority of Muslims do not understand the language. It does not matter, the Quran was revealed through Prophet’s ears and not his eyes…They (Muslims) cherish the tradition that Muhammad could not read or write as proof that Quran is pure revelation. It is enough for them that Islam is the perfect religion and the Quran the perfect text” (U L Woodward, ‘The Bible and the Quran’, Newsweek, February 11, 2001, pp 53-54).
The Quran being the book of divine revelation, it does not admit of any interpretation. The Arabic text has to be accepted as containing the eternal truth revealed by Allah through Muhammad. The book contains sporadic calls to violence. When Muslims run into opposition, the Quran counsels a bellicose response. “Fight them [non-believers] so that Allah may punish them at your hand and put them to shame”. Another verse says “fight those who believe not in Allah and the Last Day and do not forbid what god and his messenger have forbidden - such men as practice not the religion of truth, being of those who have been given the book - until they pay the tribute out of hand and have been humbled” (’Repentence’, 9:25). There are other verses in the Quran which justify, nay, sanctify violence against non-believers. “Surely the worst of beasts in god’s sight are the unbelievers” (’The Spoil’, VIII:55). “Certainly, god is an enemy to the non-believers” (’The Cow’, II:90). “Oh ye who believe! Fight those of the unbelievers and let them find in you harshness” (’Repentence’, IX:123). “Humiliate the non-Muslims to such an extent that they surrender and pay tribute” (’Repentence’, IX:29). Or say “Then when the sacred months are drawn away, slay the idolators wherever you find them and take them and confine them and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush” (’Repentence’, IX:5). [These quotations from the Quran were taken from Anwar Shaikh's two books This is Jehad and Islam and Human Rights, Houston, 1998 and 1999.]
The Quran being the text of Allah’s spoken words is immutable, unchangeable, eternal and permanent. It is beyond any interpretation. Its message is direct and has to be accepted as such by the believers. Assuming that the English version of the verses quoted above is correct, they do not admit of tolerance of other faiths or religion. They do not indicate any spirit of accommodation or reconciliation of other doctrines and tenets. They do not indicate that there are many ways of reaching Him and one can choose any path. There seems to be an inherent dogmatism in the Quran.
It is very often said that Islam means ‘peace’. But this peace promised by Allah to individuals and societies is possible only to those who follow the straight path as outlined in the Quran (Newsweek, op cit). Inferentially non-believers are not entitled to this peace.
The pedagogy followed by the madrasas is archaic and primitive. Squatting on the floor young boys memorise and recite the Holy Quran without often understanding what they are memorising. A person who memorises the Quran becomes a ‘hafiz’ and all religious Muslim families will like to have at least one ‘hafiz’ in the family. In a typical boarding madrasa the day begins at the crack of dawn with morning prayers. Then begins the academic session which is basically memorising the Quran. It continues till afternoon with a break for lunch and prayer. There will be no extra-curricular activities. Sports are not allowed. Television and radio are banned. A BBC documentary screened in 1997 showed some students in chain in a deeni madrasa in Pakistan being taught to memorise the Quran. What was even more appalling was that the head of that madrasa defended the practice saying that the chained students would otherwise run away to their homes (Matinuddin, op cit, p 13).
Young minds are brainwashed in madrasas for carrying forward the messianic spirit of Islam. Their dogmatic approach and intolerance of other points of view produce fanatics - the ideal material for Jehad.
Analysing the baneful effect of such doctrinaire education the University Education Commission (1962) observed, “One of the major causes of misunderstanding and conflict among individuals and groups is the habit of uncritical acceptance of beliefs and doctrines and transmission of them to our children through methods of teaching, conditioning and indoctrination. As a result of the adoption of these methods we grow to accept these beliefs as self-evident or revealed truths which we should preserve and protect at any cost. Doubts become difficult and obligation is felt to be sacred that we should spread the faith and compel others to come in. This type of competitive indoctrination has been in practice for centuries in the sphere of religion. A healthy scepticism is the only remedy for these disturbing phenomena. In universities and colleges we must develop the habit of free critical inquiry and apply the methods of objective criticism to beliefs and attitudes of people who differ from us but also to our own beliefs and attitudes” (Matinuddin, op cit pp 296-970).
The main objective of liberal education is to develop the faculty of logical reflection, questioning and inquiry. But when institutions impart dogmatic instruction they stifle the spirit of inquiry thereby negating the basic goal of liberal education. It applies to madrasas and similar institutions of other religions. That is bad for coexistence of various faiths and belief in a multi-religious society like ours.
There is, of course, no denying that for many Muslims madrasa education is the alternative to no education. Supported by endowments and charity, madrasas offer much cheaper education than even government schools. Board and lodging is provided at a nominal cost. Tuition is entirely free.
Since madrasas run on charity, they are often looked down upon by the Muslim elite. Affluent Muslims do not send their children to madrasas. As a result madrasas have become the repository of orphans and children of poor and destitute families. Syed Shahabuddin puts it nicely, “Hunger for education is increasing and even poor families are investing in education. In Muslim areas, one sees private schools sprouting as also private madrasas. They compete with each other. Naturally the well-to-do go to schools; madrasas care for the poor” (Muslim India, October 2001).
What Shahabuddin could have said and did not say was that this system of education is dividing the Muslim community into two nations: one affluent and employable in high paid jobs and the other poor, unemployable and forever deprived and disgruntled.
A study commissioned by the British government after the ethnic riots of Oldham and Burnby in March 2001 came out with some startling findings. It said Hindus in Britain are four times less likely to be unemployed than Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims. Muslim men of Pakistani and Bangladeshi background are disproportionately unemployed as compared to Hindus in Britain. This 220-page report says, “among south Asians Indian Muslims do better than Muslims from Pakistani or Bangladeshi background”. Though the report warns against concluding that religion necessarily causes economic disadvantage, it notes that “odds of being unemployed do vary significantly with religion”. Religion, including the influence of Islam, seems to be one of the “unidentified factors which need to be considered” by the British government in dealing with race relations (quoted from The Times, London, by The Statesman, Calcutta, February 21, 2002).
President Pervez Musharraf addressing the Science and Technology Conference at Karachi on February 18, 2002 said: “Today we are the poorest, the most illiterate, the most backward, the most unhealthy, the most unenlightened, the most deprived and the weakest of all human race. The time has come for Islamic nations to take part in self-criticism”. What president Musharraf told about Pakistani Muslims also applies, mutatis mutandis, to Indian Muslims.
The Indian nation cannot march forward with a major segment of its largest minority group remaining backward, illiterate, unenlightened, unhealthy and weak. It is the duty of every section of the Indian society, the state and the civil society to help in mainstreaming this group which has fallen by the wayside.
In this connection a question arises regarding modernisation of madrasa education. Is it possible? Here we would come up against the vested interests of the ‘illiterate mullahs’ trying to protect their turf and the political system which would like to utilise the backward for electoral gain. Strangely the interests of the non-secular religious groups and those of the so-called ’secular and progressive’ politicians merge, reinforcing one another.
The government of India has launched a scheme of modernising madrasa education since 1993. Under this scheme financial assistance is given to madrasas for funding of science, mathematics, social sciences and language teaching. But the scheme seems to be languishing. The issue of secular education in madrasa apparently raises many heckles.
The phenomenal growth in the number of madrasas and their possible link with Islamic militants has been engaging the attention of government of India. In February 2001 a committee of ministers observed, “A recent phenomenon is the mushrooming of pan Islamist militant outfits with links to radical organisations in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and some other west Asian countries. Funded by Saudi and Gulf sources many new madrasas have come up all over the country in recent years, especially in large numbers in the coastal areas of the west and in border areas of West Bengal and north-east. Reports of systematic indoctrination of Muslims in border areas in fundamentalist ideology is detrimental to country’s communal harmony” (Muslim India, March 2001). The report suggested vigorous implementation of the madrasa modernising scheme.
In West Bengal up to 1977 there were 238 official madrasas. During the LF rule from 1977 onwards so far additional 269 new madrasas have been opened. The budget allocation for madrasa education was Rs 5.06 lakh in 1977. In the 2000-2001 budget it was Rs 115 crore. The LF government is tom-toming these figures to prove their secular credentials. Spending so much of public funds in setting up new madrasas and in the financing of all old and new such institutions with antiquated syllabi of Arabic, Islamic history, culture and theology does not prove its secularism. It only shows that for garnering minority votes the LF can easily jettison all progressive and secular ideas to promote non-secular religious institutions. It also violates the spirit of sub-clause (1) of Article 28 of the Constitution. A real progressive stance would have been to set up good secular schools where children of minority and other communities together could have received good, usual education.
In fact one cannot agree more with Syed Shahabuddin when he writes, “Indeed such expenditure applying equally to all religious communities is against the letter and spirit of the Constitution. I would like the government to concentrate on providing a secular education to all children as a matter of right and leaving religious instruction to respective communities” (Letter to the Editor, The Statesman, Calcutta, February 12, 2002).
Protected by Articles 25 and 26 the minorities would continue to have their religious educational institutions. So madrasas will continue. What is expected is that madrasas should not provide substantive education replacing secular education. Every child of every community should go to secular liberal schools. If parents want their children to have religious education that should be an add-on to general education. In this regard the current practice in Kerala may provide a solution. There madrasas provide religious instructions. But madrasas work outside of normal school hours. Madrasas function between 7 am and 9 am in the morning and between 6 pm and 8 pm in the evening. Normal school education is not affected by religious instruction. Of course, there is the problem of the load factor for children. But that is a matter of adjustment.
Those who want to be imams or other religious functionaries may take a vocational course on Islamic theology in madrasas after competing either the class X or class XII public examination. Only through this process can we mainstream the hitherto sectarian religious education and turn out employable and responsible young men and women from amongst the poorer segments of the Muslim community.
Let Firdausis write on the Hindu classics and let us, the lay readers, savour and relish their delectable literary fare!
(Courtesy: EPW)