Why Muslims Should Junk Madrasas
By Arshad Alam, New Age Islam
23 May 2022
They Serve No Purpose Today Except For Dragging Down the
Community Educationally
Main Points:
1.
Uttar Pradesh will
not extend grants to new madrasas; Assam doesn’t was to use the term at all.
2.
Muslims have linked
the madrasa system with their religious and cultural identity which is
fallacious.
3.
All cultures undergo
change and there is no reason why the Muslim culture should not.
4.
Madrasas presently
serve as the political bases of the clerics who have a vested interest in
perpetuating the system.
5.
The Muslim cause is
only served through modern scientific education, not through an outmoded system
of religious education.
-----
File Photo
-----
Two statements on madrasa education have recently been splashed
across multiple media outlets. The first was from Uttar Pradesh’s lone Muslim
minister announcing that no new madrasas would be given grants by the state
government. The second was by the Assam chief minister stating that madrasas
should cease to exist. He argued that religion can be taught within homes while
the state should solely occupy itself with modern scientific education. While
the Uttar Pradesh minister Azad Ansari did not state the reasons for not
extending government grants to new madrasas, it is surmised that the state has
come to a realization that government funds should not go into funding
religious education.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The statements have predictably been severely criticized in
various quarters, including Muslim by organizations. Both Assam and Uttar
Pradesh are ruled by the BJP and the loss of trust between it and Muslims has
meant that any move on part of the government with regard to Muslims is being
taken negatively. In many instances one cannot fault the Muslims as the
government has done very little to earn the community’s trust. Moreover, will
the desire to keep out religious instruction out of our schools going to apply
equally to all religions? Only time will tell us if these two state governments
will have a similar attitude with regard to Hindu Gurukuls and Sanskrit
Pathshalas.
However, there is a sense in which madrasas occupy a unique
position in our overall educational scenario and the Muslim community needs to
do some fundamental rethinking about the continued presence of these
institutions. They need to ask whether such institutions serve any purpose in
the present times or are they simply draining the meagre resources of the
community which can be more fruitfully utilized elsewhere. One of the first
things that we need to think about is the sheer size of madrasa education. The
Sachar Committee told us that only about 3% Muslim children access these
institutions. As I have pointed out earlier, this number is a gross
under-estimation; not less than 10-12% Muslim children are studying in
madrasas. It must be remembered that there are government funded madrasas which
also teach contemporary subjects but the number of students studying therein a
far fewer as compared to those who exclusively teach religious subjects only.
No other community in India has such a huge number of
students who are exclusively studying religious subjects. Moreover, these
subjects are so outdated that they have lost relevance in contemporary times.
Muslims often complain that they have been left behind in education by
successive governments. But why do they not realize that no government can help
them if they continue to insist on the continuation of madrasa education. After
all, the government can only say that it will modernize those madrasas that are
in their control but their jurisdiction does not extend to the community funded
madrasas who are free to teach a curriculum very much of their liking.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There was a time when madrasas served an important function.
They were primarily the institutions through which recruitment happened in the
medieval bureaucracy. Muslims need to ask what useful function these
institutions are serving today? Linking them to a supposed Islamic culture is
equally fallacious. If a culture does not change with the times, then it
becomes ossified and starts becoming a fetter to the further development of any
community. This is precisely what madrasa education is doing to the educational
futures of thousands of children who are attending these institutions. There is
no new thought that is emanating from these schools; students are rote learning
without any comprehension. Those who are sending their children to such places
are too poor to comprehend whether there is any worthwhile education happening
or not. And huge amounts of the community’s internal resources are being wasted
to support and perpetuate these madrasas. If in place of 10 or 20 madrasas, a
good modern school can be established, it will eradicate the educational
deprivation of the Muslim community within a decade. But then, do we have the
will to do so? Or are we even thinking in these terms?
The only class which benefits from the continuation of
madrasas are the clerics. For long, they have opposed any changes in the
madrasa curriculum in the name of tradition and culture. Nowhere in the world,
students are forced to read texts which were written hundreds of years ago. But
then, these clerics are product of the same system and hence have developed a
vested interest in perpetuating the same system, thereby maintaining the status
quo. We must also note that madrasa students serve as an ever-ready mass of
followers who can be rallied at short notice for any political purpose. In all
the movements spearheaded by these clerics to safeguard their interests,
madrasa and their students have served as foot soldiers. Controlled by
different factions like the Deoband and Bareilly, there is little hope for
bettering the lot of madrasa students till the time the suzerainty of these
clerics holds supreme. These are the same forces which arm twisted the
government to exempt madrasas from the Right to Education Act 2009, which made
age-appropriate education a fundamental right for all children in India. But
then, if you are a Muslim child, your religious leadership has made sure that
you are bereft of this fundamental right.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is no point blaming the government for everything that
plagues the Muslim community. The problem has also been a complete lack of
introspection over what should be our priority. It might be that the
governments of UP and Assam have a lot to answer to their Muslim citizens, but
then heavens will not fall if a new madrasa is not given a grant or if madrasas
are being renamed as government schools. These measures of the government in
the long run will only help the community educationally. But what will help
them more is to dismantle the system of community funded private madrasas which
are pulling Muslims into the vortex of medievalism.
-----
A regular columnist with NewAgeIslam.com, Arshad Alam is
a writer and researcher on Islam and Muslims in South Asia.
URL: https://newageislam.com/islamic-society/muslims-junk-madrasas/d/127071
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism