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 LK 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. A recent report published in the Delhi-based Muslim fortnightly, Milli Gazette (1-15 August, 2001) quotes what it calls ‘a mischievous circular’ allegedly issued by the UP state government that 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 dated nil May 2001 and signed by BB Bakhshi, SSP, Lucknow) has been issued to the state police as a guideline in order to keep a vigil on ‘ISI activities’. The ISI, it alleges, is "leaving no stone unturned" to disrupt life in the state, and for this is ‘luring’ Muslim and Sikh youth "to involve them in subversive activities", besides also 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 allegations levelled against the madrasas. The Milli Gazette, which sent a team to inspect several of the madrasas along the Nepal-India border that have been 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 of 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 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, 16-31 July 2001]. The Milli Gazette also points out that, despite his allegations of several madrasas along the Indo-Nepal border being used as ISI bases, the 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 madrasas 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 RajasthanBorder 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 marked anti-Muslim biases that have been sought to be incorporated into the curriculum in government schools, madrasas are often the only available option for the education of children from poor Muslim families. In this way, madrasas have been playing 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.

Nor have madrasas lagged behind in working for the cause of the country as a whole. In fact, graduates from the madrasas as well as the founders of some of the leading Muslim seminaries in India played an important role in the struggle against the British, a fact that is conveniently ignored in our school history text-books. Leading ulema led uprisings against the British in the 1857 revolt, and, for decades after, 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 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-i-Tayyeba 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, 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’, 1-15 August 2001].

Instead of targeting the madrasas as potential sources of instability, a sensible 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 ‘Ulema, 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, rather than alienating them, 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 must be seen as yet another assault on the rights of the Muslims and on institutions that are 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. ```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 so indispensable for harmonious co-existence in a plural society such as ours. Obviously, then, the crusade against the madrasas is guaranteed to see 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 seem 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 Taqaze’ [‘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 the 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 what they might perceive to be threats to their faith and identity, that madrasas can begin a process of reform.

Instigating attacks against them and fanning the 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 now so brazenly ruling the roost, fanning anti-Muslim hatred and dividing the country against itself, and with radical Islamist groups adding fuel to the fire, that itself seems a distant hope.