The UP government initiated a survey of unrecognised Madrassas following the recommendation of state child protection body to look into the funding and abuses in these institutes.
Madrassa students from class 1 to 5 in Uttar Pradesh will no more be eligible for the scholarships that they have been drawing for years. In a recent notification, the central government closed the window for these students to apply for the scholarship citing provisions of free education under the Right to Education act.
According to the notification of the government, the students from class 1 to 8 are provided with free education, mid-day meals and other infrastructural facilities without any cost and thus there is no point to continue the scholarships. However, the students of class 9 and 10 are still eligible for the government benefits.
Earlier, the students from class 1 to 5 used to receive Rs. 1000 scholarship and the students from class 5 to 8 used to get it on the basis of the courses they take. These scholarships are perceived as an intensive for the poor people to join Madrassas. As per the data, last year around 5 lakhs students of 16, 558 Madrassas in the state received the scholarship facility, reports India Today.
The move of the central government certainly comes within three months of the state government’s controversial decision to conduct a survey of Madrassas.
In May this year two minor boys returned to their village, Barabanki in shackles from a Madrassa of Gosaigunj, 35 kms away and complained of ill treatments and abuse. The parents of the minors though asked the police to not take any action as they only told the teachers to be strict with them, the UP State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (UPSCPCR) initiated a probe and found that there are several unqualified teachers in the unrecognised Madrassas who are fuelling radical thoughts among the students. The commission also pointed out the regular abuses students faced and asked the government to take some measures.
Following the recommendations, the government initiated a survey of the unrecognised Madrassas. The survey though claimed to look into several aspects like the infrastructures, water facilities, furniture, student-teacher ratio and so on, the major point of enquiry for the government was question no. 9 – where does from the funding come?
While responding to the decision of survey Abdul Aziz Nadwi, vice-principal of Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulama, one of the most known Madrassa of the state said, “There is nothing to hide from authorities, everyone knows that we run on donations. All that was asked by the authorities have been provided to them.”
However, All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) termed it ‘nefarious attempt’ and said that it was an effort to enhance strife between Hindus and Muslims. He also said that identifying only Madrassas was ‘insulting’ to Muslims as if the government had any legal objective, it should have looked into all the religious institutional schools, including the missionary schools and the gurukuls.
AIMIM chief and renowned Muslim leader Asaduddin Owaisi called it a ‘Mini-NRC’ and said, “The government cannot interfere with our rights under Article 30. They just want to harass Muslims.” Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) chief Mayawati also severely criticised the move.
According to reports there are around 16,500 recognised Madrassas are there in the state among which 7000 provide the modern education and their management is run by the small fees they take from the students besides Zakat, Islamic donation given during the month of Ramzan. In the case of government aided Madrassas, the number of which in UP stands at 558, government funding is the major source and unlike the former, the state here has the proprietary rights as well. As per the estimate of the Madrassa board there can be several thousands of unrecognised Madrassas.
According to the latest reports of the survey, 8,500 unrecognised Madrassas have been identified. They employ around 3000 teachers and other stuffs. These unrecognised Madrassas approximately teach 16 lakhs students, the recent report says.
The grim situation of Madrassa education in India could be realised from Parliamentary Standing Committee report of 2018-2019 on Demands of Grants for Department of School Education & Literacy. It shows that the number of teachers paid under the Scheme to Provide Quality Education in Madrassas have drastically dropped from 50,957 during 2015-16 to 12,518 during 2017-18 in India. The same number for the UP is more drastic. It fell from 37,824 to 10,724.
As the numbers of teachers paid moderately are reduced during this period, the mushrooming of unregistered Madrassas got a fillip. In 2018 Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “The Government of India is leaving no stone unturned in empowering the Muslim youth. We want them to have the Quran in one hand and a computer in the other.” However, in reality the situation hardly changed.
The recent decision of the central government to not provide scholarships to the Madrassa students from class 1 to 8 will adversely affect the minority groups further.