The latest directive of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), the so called National Children’s Rights Panel, asking state governments and union territories to end State support to Madrasas including the call to shut down them, should be seen in the broader context of the no holds barred Hindutva fascist offensive targeting Muslims. Of course, along with Muslim organisations, progressive and democratic forces all over India have already opposed this anti-Muslim fascist move which is highly Islamophobic, anti-federal, and against the Constitutional right to freedom of religion.
In the so-called “cow-belt” or BIMARU States in India, where the fascist “double engine” is in full swing and where Muslims are the most oppressed and alienated, it is because of the existence of Madrasas that the poor and deprived Muslim children usually get some facilities for getting minimum reading and writing skills. As the Sachar Committee Report has underlined, in many of the North Indian States, the condition of Muslims and their children is even worse compared to Dalits. Hence, compared to other States, the immediate victims of the NCPCR move will be the Muslim children of North India.
Today, while the Modi regime is boasting of transforming India as world’s 3rd largest economy by 2030, it is shameful that along with world’s largest number of “absolute poor” people, India is also home to the largest number of child labourers and illiterate children below 12 years-age, majority of them belonging to oppressed lower castes and minorities, especially Muslims. On account of corporatisation, saffronisation and elitisation of education and government’s withdrawal from common education including steep reduction in budgetary allotment for it, it is a fact that the oppressed and deprived have to increasingly depend on non-governmental sources such as charitable, philanthropic and religious institutions. And, it is due to extreme poverty, deprivation and alienation, that the oppressed Muslims and lower castes are compelled to send their children to Madrasas.
In India, the strengthening of Madrasas was intertwined with the heroic anti-colonial struggle of Muslims against British imperialism since the First War of Independence. As everybody knows, while many of the Hindu kings became British lackeys, on account of the heroic resistance of the Muslim community in general, since the mid-19th century, Muslims had to live as most persecuted and being denied basic sustenance of life including education under colonial rule. Together with ‘untouchable’ Dalits, the Muslims were also forbidden to enter mainstream educational institutions. In such a horrific situation, the Madrasas remained as the sole beacon of hope that also protected their children from child labour. Not only Muslims, even those who became national leaders like Rajaram Mohan Roy were also educated through Madrasas.
At a time when there is no dearth of propaganda blitzkrieg on development and such rhetoric as ‘Viksit Bharat’, not only for Muslims but also for the poorest and deprived who live in remote villages and inaccessible social peripheries, Madrasas are the source of education, as common schools are lacking in many parts of the country. This is not at all a concern for those who are committed only to saffronise and commercialize education. It is a pity that the NCPCR which targets Madrasas, accusing them of denying basic education, is totally silent on extending education to all the children of India as enshrined in the Right to Education (RTE) Act.
And revealingly, while the Hindutva organisations, and specifically, the RSS, world’s biggest and longest-running fascist organisation, through its innumerable Shakas across the country, are giving even arms-training to children and imparting obscurantist, mythological, psuedo-scientific education coupled with xenophobic hatred towards minority religions, especially Muslims, NCPCR’s unilateral directive against Madrasas is fascistic and Islamophobic in essence. It aims at further stigmatisation of the Muslims and is part of the ongoing majoritarian polarisation against them. It is not an isolated move, but is in continuation of the series of Islamophobic and fascistic steps already initiated by Modi regime such as CAA, UCC, Waqf Bill, etc. Hence there should not be any laxity on the part of all democratic forces to resist and defeat this fascist offensive against Madrasas.
