Minority education

Does the Indian State really encourage the growth of liberal and modern elements
within its largest religious minority – the Muslims?

The lack of modernisation in the curriculum of madrassas in India, with the noteworthy exception of states like Tripura, West Bengal and even Kerala, where state governments have encouraged secularisation of the curriculum, is evident from the absence of subjects like modern Indian history, or even civics or science in the curriculum, leave alone mathematics.

The Indian State needs to ask itself serious questions regarding its contribution to the development of marginalised sections like the tribals, Dalits, women and the minorities. Today Deobandi clerics run several thousand of India’s some 30,000 madrassas. The impact of the transaction of a curriculum by an organisation not best known for its modern views can only be imagined. Most of these schools are just a room in the back of a local mosque with fewer than 100 students. But many Muslim parents see a free madrassa education, funded largely by religious donations, as the only option for their children.1 

Though education between the ages of six and 14 is compulsory in India, and largely free, government schools are often severely under-funded and often unavailable in impoverished Muslim neighbourhoods where literacy lags well behind the national average of 55 per cent. Madrassas, on the other hand, are pervasive in Muslim areas and always free. It was in 1986 that the Indian government initiated a project to modernise madrassas by bringing in subjects like science, maths, English and Hindi. But many madrassas refused to cooperate, wary of the State’s interference. The reason behind this wariness of many institutions stems as much from an innate conservatism as a sharp reaction to the public discourse about madrassas that tends to relegate them to the realm of ‘terrorist-launchers’. In fact, on May 6, 2002 (under the erstwhile NDA government), the Government of India wrote a secret letter (Memo No F3-5/99-D.III (L)) to all chief secretaries and education secretaries of the state governments and union territories to verify the antecedents of the madrassas applying for financial assistance from the government. "While forwarding the application," the letter stated, "the state government may ensure that the applications of the madrassas it is forwarding are not indulging, abetting or in any other way linked with anti-national activities. The state governments may categorically certify that the applicant madrassas are free from security angle (sic)".

The then chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, Digvijay Singh, had this to say in his reply on July 22 (No. 2026/CMO/02): "It appears that institutions being run by one community are being singled out and the sense that is sought to be conveyed is that these are potentially anti-national. This in my opinion does grave harm to the secular fabric of our country... By singling out institutions of one community alone, a grave disservice has been done to sow in a suspicion about this community itself as prone to anti-national activities. May I request you to kindly correct this perception and make the application of such institutions general in nature instead of making it discriminatory to institutions of one particular community".

The failure of the Indian secular State to reach primary education to this section of the population (Indian Muslims) has contributed to its continued relegation to a poor socio-economic status. That combined with systemic and violent attacks against the Muslim minority has further seriously hampered a modern outlook, wedded to constitutional rights and values, entering and growing within the madrassa.

This is also supported by National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) data, which shows that while 70.3 per cent of Hindu children in the age-group of six to 14 go to government schools, the percentage of Muslim children in the same age group going to these schools is only 49.5 per cent. The Studies in Educational and Socio-Economic Problems of the Minorities in India (1998) by James Massey and some sample surveys show that the literacy level among Muslims is, on an average, 10 per cent lower than the national average.

In its annual report for 1998-99, the National Commission for Minorities had also observed the malaise and said, "The presence of Muslims in general education institutions of the country is much below their population ratio – and is often found to be nil". It too had put the blame on government apathy, saying that the "educational backwardness is both the main cause and the inevitable effect of their (Muslims) under-representation in public employment and resource generating bodies".

The literacy rate and the rate of enrolment for Muslims is below that for Hindus, not only at the all-India level but also at the state level. Comparing the literacy rate and the rate of enrolment in government schools in the five states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, West Bengal and Karnataka, the NCAER report says the Muslim literacy rate is lowest in Uttar Pradesh (35 per cent) and highest in Kerala (86.9 per cent). In fact, the male literacy rate of Muslims in UP (47.1 per cent) is less than that of the Scheduled Castes (48.1 per cent). And it is in UP that the presence of madrassas is the highest. The enrolment rate in government schools for Muslims is lowest in UP (49.7 per cent), indicating a substantial preference for madrassas in this state. In Kerala, where the enrolment rate for Muslims in government schools is 97.7 per cent, the preference for madrassas is almost nil.2

The Indian State at all levels needs to publicise regular data on what it is doing and has done to further education and employment for religious minorities, women, tribals and Dalits. It is this abdication that needs to be corrected...

Education falls on the Indian Constitution’s Concurrent List and therefore envisages both central and state government interventions, through boards of education and institutions. So far, however, regulatory mechanisms that have existed on schools in various areas – with regard to basic requirements of the institution, structural and otherwise, have been guided by the various state governments...

The NCERT (National Council of Educational Research & Training)’s own Steering Committee had documented in detail the instances of the abuse of the textbook in the RSS-run schools especially as also to a different degree in madrassas...

It is imperative that basic notions of constitutional rights and values, and universal human rights be made a compulsory part of the school curriculum in both government and aided schools, as well as non-aided and private-run institutions. If some schools – the largest number – are set up by organisations whose very purpose is to subvert the Indian Constitution, can the Indian State allow schools to be set up and a curriculum through textbooks to be transacted within that subverts the very ideal of egalitarianism and non-discrimination in society?

On the question of regulatory mechanisms, a balance has to be sought between encouraging engagement in curriculum writing and textbook creation with differences, regional and linguistic, and preserving the basic foundations of the constitutional order that is committed to pluralism and a truly democratic outlook...

The Annual Report of the National Commission for Minorities needs to be examined by the Ministry of Human Resource Development and the Central Advisory Board of Education to fully appreciate, and critique, the role of the Indian State in furthering education and employment for religious minorities, women, tribals and Dalits. All-India data shows that where there are State schools, the minority does not prefer a madrassa. It is only due to the utter abdication of the Indian State in providing education towards its most marginalised sections – the poorest of the poor, Dalits, women, tribals and the Muslim religious minority – that children from these sections have been denied their fundamental right or wherever possible gravitated towards the madrassa...

The madrassa curriculum also needs to be rationally examined and also related to the critical issue of imparting of constitutional values and the development of a rational and critical outlook. India’s commitment to secularism, pluralism and democracy that contain within it the right of the minorities to administer their own educational institutions cannot and must not exclude them from the scrutiny of whether there is an adherence to the constitutional framework of egalitarianism, non-discrimination and the right to dissent for every citizen, in the education disseminated within a madrassa. A national appraisal needs to be taken of the scheme announced by the government every year to modernise madrassa education and its effective implementation. This appraisal needs to be widely publicised...

Similarly, in recent times there have been reports of the funding of madrassas worldwide but also in South Asia through Saudi Arabia promoting a particularly narrow world view. These facts need to be shared with the wider public. The moot question related to India’s largest religious minority is – does the State encourage liberal and modern elements within the religious community that further secular, constitutional values or not? n

 1 ‘Progressive Interference’, Dhirendra Jha, November 25, 2001, The Pioneer.

 2 Ibid