The state
government has in place a law which in substance and in fact ensures
total government control
over madrasa education, something which can be challenged as violative
of
Article
30 of the Constitution. That no one has done that so far suggests a
cosy
relationship, which suits those who run madrasas and the government,
both. The reason
is simple and has been aired earlier. According to official figures the
government spends about Rs 115 crores a year on maintaining the
madrasas
registered
under the Act and which entitles them to the largesse from Government.
Whether
it also suits national interests is another matter altogether.
-
Storm
in a tea cup!, Statesman,
09/05/2002,
/eldoc/n20_/09May02st2.htm
Religious Schools
Indiscriminate targeting of madrasas will only alienate minorities
further and harden extremist sympathies on both sides. Besides, efforts
set in motion by several madrasas to adapt to the changing educational
needs of Muslims may be severely hampered.
Ever since the present BJP-led coa lition 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 state-ments 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, repro-duced 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'.
- Targeting Muslim Religious Schools,
YOGINDER SlKAND, Economic & Political Weekly, 01/09/2001,
/eldoc/n00_/01sep01EPW1.pdf
Religious Schools Reforms
Recently the Centre has decided to
give financial aid to those madarsas which sought to be modernised.
This decision should be hailed by everyone but before opting for such a
measure the concerned authorities running the madarsas have to consider
its positive as well as negative implications.
-
Modernise the madarsas, Naushad Anjum, Pioneer, 19/12/1994,
/eldoc/n00_/19dec94pio1.pdf
Religious schools
In a bid to regulate the functioning
of thousands of madrassas, Pak-istan has approved a new ordinance
making it mandatory for these Islamic religious schools to register
with the government, without which they will be disbanded and forgo
state benefits.
-
Pak clamps down on madrassas, Times of India, 21/06/2002,
/eldoc/n24_/21june02toi1.pdf
Communalization of education Religious Schools
Even as Islamic scholars express the
need to modernise 'madarasas', many such institutes of Islamic learning
follow an archaic syllabus, heed their own rules, and have little truck
with the reality outside their cloistered classrooms.
-
Funds are always a problem for madrasas, Shabnam Minwalla,
Times of India, 03/12/2001,
/eldoc/n24_/03dec01toi1.pdf
-
Understanding Madrassas, Arshad Alam, EPW, 31/05/2003,
/eldoc/l61_/madrassa2.html
-
The Madrassas in India, Mushirul Hasan, The Hindu,
21/05/2003,
/eldoc/l61_/madrassa1.htm
************************************************************************************************
Books:
-
Lessons from Schools: The History
of Education in Banaras, Kumar, Nita, Sage Publications,
01/01/2000, B.N00.K10
-
Madrasa Education In India: A Study
of its Past and Present, Kaur, Kuldip, CRRID, 01/08/1990,
B.N00.K4