Educational institutions run by India’s religious minorities are suddenly in the gun-sights of an assertive Hindu Right which has tasted power after a long gap of 10 years. The principle target is Islamic madrasas. But also on the hit-list are some of India’s most prestigious schools and colleges run by Christians.
The targeting gives an insight into Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) objectives even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government tries to get its act together.
In BJP-ruled Maharashtra, the state government has threatened that madrasas which do not teach English, mathematics and science subjects in addition to religion-based studies, won’t be considered as proper schools, denied government grants and their students will not be eligible for admission to mainstream educational institutions.
Vinod Tawde, Maharashtra education minister, whose own college degree is under a cloud triggering calls for his resignation on moral grounds, has announced that madrasas imparting only religious education will be declared ‘non-schools” and its students deemed “out of school.” The ultimatum is clearly uncalled for as the Muslim community in Maharashtra and elsewhere in India understands the value of modern education and madrasa reform is one of its key demands from the government any way.
“In such a scenario,” says Hem Borker doing her doctoral thesis on education at Oxford University, “the move of the Maharashtra government to arm-twist madrasas into modernization is a short-sighted policy at best, and outright stereotyping at worst.” Borker also wonders whether the hidden objective is to “delegitimize and devalue idioms associated with the Muslim identity especially given that madrasas have been a long-time favourite.”
I think that instead of harping on madrasas, which according to Justice Rajinder Sachar Committee’s findings, cater to as little as four percent of Muslim students, the government should set up so-called secular schools in Muslim-majority areas to curb marginalization and isolation of Muslims and provide education at par with the majority community. The state should also generously fund madrasa modernization instead of issuing threats to declare them ‘non-schools.” Modernization, above all, should be a silent and benevolent exercise. Raucous policy discourses on reforming madrasas at gun-point sully the image of madrasas and their products, placing them right at the bottom of the educational pyramid.
Several analysts have openly criticized BJP’s bid to intimidate madrasas. One commentator wrote that the entire point of meddling with madrasas is to detract from the larger questions of Muslims facing social discrimination and exclusion in education, housing, employment and development schemes. And as there is recourse to justice in India where courts have a glorious record of ensuring the rule of law, Muslim bodies like the Jamat-e-Islami Hind are planning to file a public interest litigation against the Maharashtra government if it tries to penalize madrasas defying the Constitution which gives religious minorities the right to establish and run their own educational institutions.
Significantly RSS is also gunning for centers of educational excellence like St Stephen’s, Delhi; St Xavier’s, Mumbai and Kolkata; Loyola College, and Madras Christian College, Chennai; St Joseph’s, Bengalaru; Christ College, Pune; St Francis College for Women, Hyderabad. RSS wants their minority status, which entitles them to several privileges, withdrawn simply because they have more non-Christian than Christian students on their rolls!
According to Mukul Kanitkar who heads RSS’s Bharatiya Shikshan Mandal (BSM), the government gives financial aid to minority institutions to help students belonging to minorities but many minority institutions have more general students than the minorities, and yet the management of these institutions is in the hands of minorities which leads to gross misuse of state aid.
Kanitkar’s argument runs contrary to Constitutional provisions for religious minorities. His aim clearly is to pressurize Christians besides undermining the best educational institutions India is justifiably proud of. Christians say that BSM’s move is especially worrisome as it comes in the wake of attacks on churches and clergy which have left the community badly shaken. Their unease is evident from the July 25 meeting in New Delhi of Christian MPs from eight political parties. Their agenda includes telling the government to leave their educational institutions alone.
