By Yoginder Sikand

In recent years, along with the rise of Hindutva in India, the coming to power in Afghanistan of the Taliban, and especially the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York in September 2001, madrasas, or Islamic schools, have been much in the news. Tarred with the same brush, they have been collectively accused of being `dens of terror' and of churning out thousands of `Islamic warriors' all set to swamp India. Predictably, Hindutva leaders have been vociferous in demanding that madrasas be closed down, claiming that they are working in tandem with `enemies' of the country. They have alleged that the Indian madrasas, particularly those located along India's international borders, are being used by the dreaded Pakistani secret service agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), to spread `terror' in India.

Similar claims have been made by Indian journalists and even by senior Indian government officials from time to time. A detailed Indian intelligence report issued some years ago claimed that some madrasas were functioning as training grounds for ISI spies and anti-Indian `terrorists'. The report went on to suggest that muftis, maulvis and imams in these schools may have been replaced by what it calls `highly fanatic agents of ISI', secretly working for the break- up of India. In May 2001, a ministerial group for the `reform of internal security' headed by the then Indian Home Minister L.K. Advani, released a 137-page report that recommended, among other measures, a close scrutiny of madrasas. Curiously enough, no mention was made in this report, as well as in the numerous similar reports of Indian intelligence agencies, of schools run by a range of Hindutva groups that are systematically engaged in spreading hatred and supporting violence against Muslims, Christians and other similarly marginalized communities in the country.

Predictably, Muslim organizations have been quick to register their protest against allegations leveled against the madrasas. The Delhi-based Muslim paper Milli Gazette, which sent a team to inspect several madrasas along the Nepal-India border, where a number of `radical' madrasas were alleged to have come up in recent years, reported that none of the dozen Muslim seminaries that the team visited had any association whatsoever with the ISI. In not one of these madrasas was any sort of physical instruction, leave alone military training, being imparted.

Apparently, these madrasas had no history at all of provoking Hindu-Muslim conflict. In fact, one of them had several Hindu students and teachers on its rolls, while another had several regular Hindu donors. The Milli Gazette's rebuttal of allegations against the madrasas, echoed by numerous other Muslim papers, gains further credence from the fact that state authorities have so far failed to name a single madrasa that is involved in ISI-related activities. In fact, some senior government officers have gone on record to admit that the charges against the madrasas are baseless. Thus, for instance, while claiming that the ISI was active along the Indo-Nepal border, Uttar Pradesh's Director General of Police (DGP), Sriram Arun, denied that madrasas were being used as hideouts by the ISI. Likewise, the DGP of Rajasthan admitted that madrasas in the border areas were `neither centres of ISI nor have they ever participated till date in any anti-national activities'. Clearly, the madrasas are being made to bear the brunt of a crude propaganda exercise.

There are several thousand Islamic schools spread all across India. 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 specialize in religious studies and train as imams and maulvis, numerous larger seminaries or madrasas exist, with 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. Madrasas are often the only available educational option for children from poor Muslim families. They have thus been playing an important role in promoting literacy among the Muslims, who have the dubious distinction of being, along with Dalits, the least educated community in India. Historically too, some madrasas have contributed to the national cause. Graduates from the madrasas played an important role in India's struggle against the British, a fact that is conveniently ignored in our school history text-books. Prominent `ulama led uprisings against the British in the 1850s, and for decades after numerous `ulama kept aloft the banner of defiance in the Pathan borderlands till they were forcibly put down by the British. Many `ulama, though by no means all, vehemently opposed the Muslim League, its `two-nation' theory and its demand for a separate Muslim state of Pakistan, insisting on a united India where people of different faiths could live in harmony with each other.

This is not to suggest that all is well with the madrasas today. Some madrasas in Pakistan, for instance, have emerged as training grounds for self-styled jihadists. It appears that it is experience of these madrasas in Pakistan that has fuelled the fear of madrasas in India also following the same path. However, such a fear is misplaced, there being, so far, no evidence of Indian madrasas being actually involved in similar activities.

Instead of targeting the madrasas as potential sources of instability, the state needs to adopt a cautious, yet sensitive, strategy to engage with them, in order to help promote Muslim education. The state needs to recognize the role that the madrasas are playing in promoting literacy among the Muslim masses, a task that actually relieves the state of its responsibility in this regard, saving the public exchequer millions of rupees every year. This would also help assuage Muslim fears of their identity being under threat in India, a fear on which the conservative sections of the `ulama are able to capitalize to stake their claims of being authoritative spokesmen of the community. Winning the confidence of at least some influential `ulama of the madrasas, the state can also use the influence and prestige that they command among many Muslims abroad to promote Indian interests, most crucially to help influence the policies of countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Islamist groups active in these countries, towards India. Leading Indian madrasas, such as the Dar ul-`Ulum at Deoband, the Mazahir ul-`Ulum at Saharanpur and the Nadwat ul-`Ulama at Lucknow are widely respected all over the `Muslim world'. Building allies with some of the leading `ulama from these madrasas, might help in assuaging the radical appeal of jihadist groups in Pakistan.

Most critics of the madrasas have probably never visited a madrasa, and so much of what is said about them in the press is pure hearsay. Yet, it is true that in many madrasas students are taught to see all non-Muslims in far from flattering colours. This understanding of the `other' is something that they share with Hindutva ideologues, whose image of Muslims is no less lurid. The notion of an irreconcilable hostility between Hindus and Muslims is as central to radical Islamist agenda as it is to the Hindutva worldview. The targeting of the madrasas can thus only play into the hands of both Hindu as well as Islamist militants, and further reduce the receding 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 seems little hope for them to be able to drag themselves out of the morass of redundancy they find themselves in. Many madrasa teachers as well as students are increasingly concerned with what they see as their outdated and increasingly irrelevant curriculum and methods of teaching. Reforms, they believe, are long overdue, but obviously cannot be forcibly imposed. It is only in a climate of peace and security, when Muslims are free from what they perceive to be threats to their faith and identity, that madrasas can actually begin a process of reform. Instigating attacks against them and fanning the flames of anti-Muslim terror will not only undermine the conditions for reform, but might even make militancy a self-fulfilling prophecy.