Why verbal and non-verbal attacks on Madrasas in India?

“Muslims have not only become targets of right-wing goons but have also become victims of a wide-spread vicious propaganda spread against madrasas with patronage of the State”

Humra Quraishi

Why verbal and non-verbal attacks on the madrasas in the country? Mind you, not just by the semi-Sarkari men but also by the right-wing politicians, including chief ministers! Where are these critics when madrasas and the madrasa children get attacked by the Hindutva brigades?

In recent years one incident after another of madrasa children targeted not just in the BJP-ruled States of the country, but also in the capital city, New Delhi. In 2018, eight-year-old child Mohammad Azeem, studying in a madrasa situated in South Delhi’s Begampur, was lynched by the local Hindutva goons. Shockingly, this was not the first time that a madrasa child was targeted in that very locality of South Delhi.

Around 2017, a group of madrasa children was brutally thrashed in a park, once again in the Begampur locality, by right-wing goons after forcing them to chant ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’! And to compound the tragedy, there was no reaction from the political setups, ministers, or chief ministers, nor the various Commissions and Child-Right forums!

And in the summer of 2019, on 11 July 2019, madrasa children were attacked by Bajrang Dal men, in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao… They were attacked with cricket bats and stumps and then stones pelted on them. On July 16, 2019, national dailies carried another news report of yet another madrasa attacked in Uttar Pradesh’s Behta village in the Fatehpur district… I could go on, to list the very vulnerability of the madrasa children and the maulvis manning the madrasas.

For the last more than three decades, I have been visiting orphanages and madrasas… With that, interacting with the children. These visits to the madrasas got me close to the realities in which the children survive. During my visits I would talk to the children about their daily routine; what they ate, what they read, and also about their families and ancestral setups back home.

With that, I could grasp the background of them. Many of the children are orphans or semi-orphans, from economically deprived, socially disadvantaged families. It wouldn’t be amiss to say that several were sent by their relatives to the madrasas so that they get two meals, a safe roof over their heads, and also basic education. Now, with the right-wing coming up with one alibi after another, targeting the madrasas, even those basics could get snatched from these children!

In those earlier decades, madrasas were considered the apt institutions of learning and knowledge. Till, of course, the right-wing’s ongoing propaganda, demolished the very significance that ought to have been given to these age-old, traditional learning institutions. Madrasa critics haven’t even bothered to enter a madrasa and see for themselves the exact realities. The very basics stand out – as a majority of the madrasas neither have television sets nor radios, nor any of the modern-day connecting gadgets, so the traditional conditions exist and with that the innocence of these madrasa children.

Today, communally surcharged politics has heaped havoc to such an extent that every madrasa child or even a visitor to a madrasa is looked at with suspicion and disbelief and much more! There is an ongoing onslaught on psyches. Though this has been on for several years, earlier it was more along the subtle format but now all out there, blatantly aggressive.

Yet we don’t seem to be reacting! I wonder why! Either we have become thick-skinned or brutally insensitive to the ground realities spreading out… hitting the minority community. Not to be overlooked is the fact that lynching victims happen to be Muslim men and their sons. They also happen to be victims of demarcations and disadvantages where jobs, livelihoods, and housing are concerned. Not to overlook the other unsettling fact – the percentage of jailed Muslim men is higher in proportion to the Muslim population in India. I wonder why?

Also, not to overlook the fact that over the years the right-wing has managed to spread out the most vicious propaganda against madrasas. And none of our politicians or even the community leaders have managed to counter any of this utterly bogus and vicious and third-rate propaganda… Madrasa bashing seems the order of the day. To link madrasas with terror activities is a fashionable ploy to attack, if not hound the young.

Air Vistara’s team celebrated #JRDTata’s b’day in full zeal with the lovely children from Chinar Kashmir Child Nurture & Relief orphanage at Srinagar. Photo/X @airvistara

One should see the bare basics in the madrasas. The madrasas located in Haryana’s Mewat and even the ones in New Delhi are so basic that one feels as though entering an ancient setup. On several occasions when I visited the Lucknow-situated Nadwa (one of the most sought-after centres in India for Islamic religious studies) felt as though I’d come to a Gandhian ashram. Clad in cotton kurta-pajamas, young students went about in that no-fuss manner, with the basic wooden furniture dotted in the rooms of this institution… There were only a few computers.

And to the ‘why’ of the few computers, the answer was where are the funds for more, although the children seemed keen to use computers. What about the talks that Nadwa gets grants and aid from some Muslim countries? The maulanas of Nadwa rubbished those reports and told me that it runs on whatever little the community can muster, including the Zakat money which every Muslim ought to give from his or her earnings, for the needy and disadvantaged.

And to all those Hindutva characters who keep clubbing the madrasas with the Musalman phobias, it is significant to point out that in the earlier decades, middle-class Hindu families would also send their children to madrasas. Yes, much against the popular perception that only Muslim families send their children to study in a madrasa, the fact is that in the traditional setups, when communal poisoning was not unleashed to divide and distance, even the non-Muslim families sent their children to madrasas for education. Our veteran and much-loved writer Munshi Premchand was sent by his family for his early education, to a madrasa in his home state of Uttar Pradesh.

To compound today’s dismal situation, the community leaders and the so-called politically and socially influential persons from the Muslim community are seldom seen interacting with the madrasa children. Their presence is urgently needed; at least it would provide some level of cushioning which is crucial for the very safety of the young children studying in the madrasas.

Also, community leaders ought to see to it that the madrasa children get enrolled in regular schools so that they are not lagging on the education front. Whilst residing in the madrasa they could or should attend regular schools. This would only be possible if the community leaders help out, in guiding the madrasa children with admissions and also looking after the connected educational requirements.

It is significant to mention here that several children’s ‘homes’ situated in the Kashmir Valley (where orphaned and even semi-orphaned children reside and, in most cases, attend a regular school and spend hours pursuing religious studies) are comparatively better off than most of the madrasas I have visited in and around New Delhi and in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana’s Mewat belt.

This is because several Valley-situated orphanages/homes have adopted this ‘via media’ between the madrasa and regular mainstream education, where the children attend a regular school (many a time an English medium school) but in the evenings and early mornings (that is, before setting off for school or after attending school) they read the Quran and tend to other religious text.

This, according to me is the best possible combination, but quite obviously for obvious reasons not affordable. Not to be overlooked the fact that unlike in the Mughal era or even in later decades when the Zamindari system was not abolished, madrasa teaching was funded and taken care of by this ruling class, today the madrasas are maintained on meagre resources; mainly put together by community members or at times by the Waqf Boards.

It is time for the community leaders to reach out to the madrasa children. Help them, guide them to upgrade their educational skills, and perhaps see to it they get enrolled in regular schools and colleges to stand on par with other children.