'Public Education In Pakistan Is A Disgrace'

Barbara D. Metcalf teaches at the Department of History at the University of California, Davis. She hasworked extensively on Islam in India, focusing particularly on the reformist Deobandi madrasa and the relatedTablighi Jama'at movement. She is best known for her path-breaking study of the history of the Dar-ul 'Ulummadrasa, Deoband. She talked to Yoginder Sikand about the role of madrasas and the Tablighi Jama'at incontemporary South Asia.

Yoginder Sikand: In recent years, and particularly after the events of 11 September, 2001, there hasbeen much talk in India, Pakistan and America, particularly in official circles, about the activities of somemadrasas that are believed to be actively involved in sponsoring militant activities. What are your views onthis?

Barbara D. Metcalf: The government of Pakistan has the most serious issues about madrasas because all evidence points to the factthat many madrasas, especially along the frontier with Afghanistan, have in fact been places where young menhave been recruited for militant movements. These movements have had international dimensions, especially inAfghanistan and Kashmir, but they have also spilled over into the sectarian and now anti-state violence thatthreatens everyday life within the country.

Even a couple of years ago, I was disheartened to visit a major madrasa in Lahore, the Jami'a Ashrafiyya(one that Musharraf identified, by the way, as a model madrasa), and was depressed that a guard with a rifleslung across his lap had to sit in front of the main entrance. Any institution seems at risk of some kind ofattack.

The Pakistan government has attempted to end foreign enrollment as a first step to controlling the madrasas,and now is trying to register madrasas, ideally with a view to knowing more about what is taught and evenintroducing secular subjects. This has produced great protest in recent weeks.

Here is where America is involved -- even if the Pakistani government see this registration in its owninterests, and in the interests of its citizens, the madrasas and the `ulama see the move as exemplary ofMusharraf's being a pawn in the hands of America.

As for India, there have been inappropriately inflammatory comments by right-wing politicians about thealleged subversiveness, foreign funding, etc. of madrasas. As Muslims themselves have replied, if there isillegal activity, there are laws that can be applied.

There is shockingly little attention given, I might add, to the right-wing teaching inculcated in someHindu schools.

Two actions are worth noting. The BJP government when it first came to power began denying visas toforeigners wishing to study in madrasas, ending centuries of India's being a cosmopolitan venue for thereligious sciences for students from Central Asia, Malaysia, and East and South Africa in particular.

Secondly, the government has initiated under the Human Resources Ministry an initiative to supply teachers,texts in secular subjects, and even computer instruction (all through the medium of Urdu) to madrasas. Thismove has, understandably, been met with skepticism about intent in many institutions although several computerinstruction facilities are functioning successfully.

Do you think government interference is the right way to approach the question of 'reform' in themadrasas?

It certainly does not seem to have been productive so far.

How would you distinguish between the Indian and the Pakistani madrasas on questions related to securityand 'terrorism'?

I think that it is unfortunate to link the two countries. As far as I know, no one has ever identified anIndian madrasa as linked to terrorist activity whereas in Pakistan there is a case to be made.

How do you see the madrasas of South Asia as responding today to questions of modernity and pluralism?

This is a very important question. First off, what do the students learn? It is worth underlining that themadrasas vary enormously -- the term covers little ad hoc schools teaching the alphabet to local children allthe way to places that consider themselves universities and centers of great scholarship. At best, the schoolsteach far more than the rote learning they are accused of. In fact they inculcate great linguistic skills,analogic and other forms of reasoning, and logic as well as the content of a great cultural tradition.

Ideally, students learn a high level of self-discipline and morality. Two vignettes. In Pakistan when I waslast there (3 years ago) I met a young woman who had graduated from a madrasa in Peshawar. She spoke fluentArabic and, in a large gathering of women, was impressive in her self-confidence coupled with modesty abouther achievements. I also visited a girls' madrasa in Lahore with facilities for teaching blind girls andproviding training in computers. (They also teach the girls the encyclopedic, early 20th century guide forwomen, the Bihishti Zewar, which I was interested in since it's a text I've translated!)

All this may not add up to "modernity", but it certainly means that some students acquireconsiderable "social capital" thanks to these schools.

I also visited a couple of madrasas in the upper Doab when I as in India last winter. One comment. One ofthe schools taught roughly equal numbers of girls and boys, and as we arrived, a flood of girls in brightcolored kurtas came flying out of school, as happy as children any where at the end of the day. The school wasto be closed the next day to serve as the polling place for the scheduled state elections-- neither the girlsnor the civic duty were part of the usual image one has of a madrasa.

Literacy is good, schooling is good -- even if this is not modernity. And in both India and Pakistan, aspeople often note, there are often limited options for students. Public education in Pakistan is a disgrace. Iam less informed about India, but I might note that a team of anthropologists working in the area I visiteddocumented what they called "institutional communalism" on the part of government, by which theymean a disproportionate neglect of schools, medical facilities, etc. in primarily Muslim areas.

What implications do you think the influence of the Tablighi Jama'at, an Islamic movement about whichyou have written extensively, has had on inter-community relations in India?

This is a hard one. Ideally Tablighi Jama`at, as a movement focused on what of late I've been calling"spiritual rearmament" among Muslims, is tolerant of the foibles of fellow Muslims, inculcatingmutual respect and avoiding criticism, so not contributing to sectarianism among Muslims -- and not reallyinterested at all in non-Muslim outsiders.

Outsiders are, to be sure, considered misguided, but there certainly is no physical or even verbalopposition directed toward them. Tablighis don't even participate in debates. Most religious traditionsthrough most of time claim absolute truth -- even what we call Hinduism, if one remembers that Shaivites andVaishnavites have killed each other and even Gandhi's "tolerance" had at core a kind of patronizinghegemony (not that that is not infinitely more attractive than Hindutva).

There are cosmopolitan precedents within Islam, but not to my knowledge among Tablighis. So while TablighiJama'at certainly does nothing negative to hurt inter-community relations, it, fundamentally (and, again, thisis probably true of most religious people in most religious contexts) does not value non-Muslim religionsexcept in so far as they fit into the classic Islamic "comparative religion" of all faiths stemmingfrom true teachings that have gone astray.

Tablighis are not interested, for example, in inter-faith dialogue or any exercise that would involvetrying to understand the framework of another faith -- though, again, it is worth saying that this orientationis one that few of any religion embrace. So Tablighis do inculcate a kind of cultural encapsulation but theyare not alone in doing this in India.

The Tablighi Jama'at is now the largest Islamic movement in the world today, with a particularly strongpresence in South Asia. What political role do you see the movement as playing?

Tablighis do not espouse any political position as a body -- they have no organization that could speak forall participants in any case. They have to maintain cordial relationships with authorities because they needpermits for meetings, visas for travel, etc..

Many people suggest that governments look kindly on them precisely because they are not political.Individual Tablighis may or may not vote and participate in political life and, presumably, like all voters inIndia they try to figure out who will best serve their interests.

Yoginder Sikand is currently engaged in a post-doctoral research at the International Institute for thestudy of Islam in the modern world, Leiden, the Netherlands. He also edits a websiteon related issues.