Making A Difference

What India Can Learn From Pakistan?

The Indian State must come forward to look after poor Muslim children or they turn out to be fodder for non-state actors like ISIS

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What India Can Learn From Pakistan?
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Islamabad: A month before the 9/11 attacks in US, the military regime in Pakistan realised that some madrassas were spreading sectarianism and extremism and there was a need to have a check on these seminaries. The government of of General Pervez Musharraf imposed ban on some sectarian outfits and introduced the Madrassas Board Ordinance 2001 in August of the same year. The aim of this ordinance was to secure the registration, regulation and uniformity of curricula in madrassas.

More than 35,000 madrassas under five different boards of different ideologies welcomed the move but the world changed after 9/11. The Musharraf regime started a crackdown on many madrassas under US pressure and hundreds of madrassa students were detained for investigations. Use of brutal state power against the madrassas and religious elements backfired in Pashtu-speaking areas because dozens of madrassas in these areas were bombed when a military operation began in 2004. A wave of suicide bombings took place all over Pakistan after the military operation against a women’s madrassa adjacent to the Lal Masjid of Islamabad in 2007.

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All efforts to modernise and regulate madrassas failed in Pakistan. A new National Action Plan (NAP) to fight extremism was introduced after the brutal Taliban attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar in 2014. Implementation of this plan is slow but to some extent NAP is producing some positive results at least in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Swat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where Malala Yousafzai was attacked by the Taliban in 2012.What can India learn from the bad experiences of Pakistan?

First of all, there is a need to realise that most of the children from Muslim families opt for madrassas not out of choice but due to poverty because they cannot afford expensive education in regular schools. Many students go to madrassas because they don’t have schools which can provide education in their own mother tongue or education according to their social and religious demands. Madrassas often play the role of “orphan houses” where poor children get shelter, food and religious education free of cost. These madrassas share the parents’ economic burden but, sometimes, multiply the extremism in a modern society.

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Modernisation and regulation of madrassas is not a bad idea but the Government of India must focus on providing regular schools in poor Muslim majority areas. Good modern schools providing education free of cost is the only answer to madrassas that are not ready to integrate with modern education. Pakistan Army is building and running many good schools in FATA that are becoming an alternative to the madrassas. I know many madrassas where modern education was introduced and students switched to regular schools because they realised modern education was far better. The Indian government should not use State power to integrate madrassas with modern education. Introduction of good, regular schools and colleges in poor areas will ultimately integrate Muslim youth into Indian society. The biggest challenge is to build trust between the Muslim minority and modern education system. The Indian State must come forward to look after the poor Muslim kids. If the State will not play the role of a caring mother, then the non-State actors will easily become father to the poor kids.

(Hamid Mir works for Geo Television in Pakistan. He tweets at @HamidMirGeo)

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