Editorial

Recently, there has been much talk about the setting up of a Central Madrasa Board. There are both negative as well as possible positive aspects of this proposal, some benefits as well as some drawbacks. What is certain, however, is that the Board will have some very negative consequences. The Board would fund the madrasas that affiliate themselves to it, and obviously this would lead to interference by the state. The state would deal with these madrasas on its own terms. Such funding can be used to build and consolidate vote-banks and might lead to the politicization of madrasas, leading to competition for government patronage. This would negatively impact on the teachers’ passion for and commitment to their work. They will become more concerned with raise in their salaries and other such benefits, and would not hesitate to take to demonstrations and strikes for this end as in other educational institutions. It would also lead to a situation like that which prevails in many madrasas affiliated to the Madrasa Board appointed by the Bihar government, where numerous teachers have never even seen the madrasas where they are supposed to be teaching. They sit at home and draw their salaries, like in government-run schools.

Because the salaries of teachers and staff in the affiliated madrasas would be much higher than what is presently given in the independent madrasas, political links and personal contacts will become more important than capability, expertise and experience in staff appointments. The managers of the madrasas will then have to seek to please the ruling party to keep the funds flowing in. So, in all, the setting up of a Central Madrasa Board might seriously impact in a very negative way on the madrasas.

Board-affiliated madrasas would give their teachers better salaries and service conditions. So, it is possible that teachers working in independent madrasas, whose salaries are very low, would seek to make a beeline for these madrasas. Till now they have been relying on God and leading a very simple lifestyle. But obviously the opportunity of earning a government salary would impact on the minds of several of them. So, two classes of ulema would emerge, and there would be a sort of conflict of interests between them. The teachers in the independent madrasas would feel that despite their better qualifications and experience and their greater commitment, they are paid much less than those in Board-affiliated madrasas.

Many madrasa teachers labour under the arbitrariness and whims of the managers of the madrasas. The Board, if it is established, would certainly lead to greater and more open articulation of this resentment. Teachers would be motivated to ask for higher salaries, threatening that if their demands were not granted they would shift to Board-affiliated madrasas.

Many madrasa students may welcome the setting up of the Board if it enables the madrasas to get affiliated to various universities that would recognize their degrees. This is what the Sachar Committee Report also advises. This would create two streams within the madrasa system, one group of students would study in madrasas for a couple of years, say till the middle level and then would be able to join high schools and universities. Others, who want to spend their life serving the cause of the faith, can carry on with specialised religious education. Unlike the case now, only those students who have genuine interest in serving the faith as ulema, and have not taken to madrasa education out of economic compulsion, would thereby go on for higher Islamic learning in the madrasas.

The Board can act as a bridge that can help reduce the hiatus that exists between the madrasa and the ‘modern’ systems of education. This role can be further promoted if the Board can select bright madrasa graduates and arrange for them to go in for short courses in English, Social Sciences and so on, so that they can thereafter join universities. For this, it can open a university of its own or else special departments in existing universities. So a Central Madrasa Board is like a bitter pill it may heal, but might also have its own negative side-effects.