Name of the Book: Madrase Aur Dehshatgardi: Kya Afsana Kya Haqiqat
(‘Madrasas And Terrorism: Myth versus Reality') (Urdu)
Author: Muhammad Mukhtar Alam
Publisher: Indian Social Institute, New Delhi
Year: 2004
Price: Rs.50
Pages:100
Reviewed by: Yoginder Sikand

Madrasas, or Islamic schools, are today a much talked-about subject. Critics
routinely brand them as dens of obscurantism and even as factories of terror.
Defenders glorify them as vanguards of Islam and Muslim identity. The debate
on the madrasa system continues to rage, raising much heat but shedding little
light on what is a sorely neglected and little-understood subject.

This slim book presents the results of a survey conducted by the author, a
researcher associated with the Indian Social Institute, New Delhi, of a
number of madrasas situated along the Indo-Nepal border, in the states of Bihar,
Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. The geographical scope of the book is significant
and deliberately chosen, given the allegations leveled against madrasas in these
areas of being involved in promoting terrorism and as being in league with
the dreaded Pakistan secret services’ agency, the Inter-Service Intelligence
(ISI).  Many of these madrasas are regularly visited by the police, and are under
close surveillance.

The book is divided into three broad sections. The first section discusses
the importance of education in Islam and provides a history of the institution
of the madrasa in India, from the period of the Delhi Sultanate till 1947. Here
Alam does not provide anything new, simply rehashing material that is
available elsewhere in numerous books already written on the subject. Seeking to
combat widely held notions of Muslim ‘disloyalty’, he rightly mentions that
numerous ‘ulama from the madrasas, particularly those associated with the Deoband
schoolof thought, played a crucial role in the anti-colonial movement, opposing
the British as well as the Muslim League’s demand for Pakistan. However, he
presents the ‘ulama as a homogenous category, as if they all were unanimous in
support of a united India and of a composite nationalism. He conveniently ignores
several enormously influential ‘ulama, such as those associated with the Jama‘at-i
Islami and the Barelvi school, who vociferously supported the Partition of
India and the ‘two-nation’ theory of the Muslim League. Likewise, he also leaves
unmentioned a minority among the Deobandis who did not conceal their support
for the League.

The second section of the book deals with a range of issues concerning
madrasas in contemporary India. Alam contends that the madrasas are today playing a
major role in promoting education and literacy among poor Muslims. However, he
questions the sort of education that most madrasas actually provide their
students. He writes that several madrasas are now including modern subjects in
their curriculum, a development that he wholeheartedly supports. Yet, he says,
most madrasas have not made any major accommodation to modern knowledge, as
a result of which their students know little about the contemporary world and,
consequently, find it difficult, if not impossible, to find productive 

employment other than as imams in mosques and madrasa teachers. Many
madrasas even forbid their students from reading ‘worldly’ literature, because of
which their students, once they graduate, cannot properly adjust to the outside
world.  The employment issue is crucial, however, Alam rightly insists, because most
madrasa students come from poor families who send their children to madrasas
in the hope that they would, in the future, be able to supplement their meagre
family incomes. He argues that probably the majority of students are sent to
madrasas not because of a passionate commitment to Islam but simply out of
economic compulsion. He critiques diehard conservatives among the ‘ulama for
opposing the inclusion of modern subjects in the madrasas in order to
preserve their own vested interests, arguing that such ‘ulama are directly
responsible, to a considerable extent, for the backwardness and stagnation of Muslim
society.

The third section of the book presents the results of the survey that Alam
claims to have undertaken of almost a hundred madrasas in the districts
along the Indo-Nepalese border. After presenting the findings in the form of a
series of tables, Alam concludes that there is no evidence of madrasas in these
areas being involved in promoting terrorism. Critics and defenders of the madrasas
may continue to debate about the veracity of this claim, but the methodology
that Alam employs in the survey is deeply flawed. We are provided simply with
cold statistics drawn from the questionnaires that Alam claims to have
administered  to some 3500 people. The respondents’ own voices and the finer nuances of
their responses find no space here, and all we get are ‘yes’ and ‘no’ as replies
to a range of questions. Clearly, the questionnaire method is quite inappropriate
for a study of this sort, which should have taken the form of in-depth
interviews instead. One gets no feeling or sense that Alam has actually met with 3500
people and visited almost a hundred madrasas at all. This writer, for one,
tends to agree with Alam’s claim that madrasas are not engaged in actively
promoting terrorism. In fact, Hindutva forces, who routinely demonise madrasas as dens
of terror, have yet to come up with the firm evidence of a single madrasa in
India of this sort. RSS-schools, which number in their thousands, are more
deserving of the label of factories of hate than the Indian madrasas. However, what
Alam completely ignores, willfully or otherwise, is the fact that many madrasas
promote an extremely insular worldview, in which non-Muslims and their
religions are often depicted in an extremely negative way, sometimes even as ‘enemies’
of God. The fierce denunciations of other faiths, and the constant refrain of
non-Muslims allegedly plotting to destroy Islam, does little good at all in
helping to promote better inter-community relations. In fact, as in the case
of several Pakistani madrasas, such a mindset can be used to fan hatred and
violence against other communities and even against other Muslim sects.

The concluding part of the book is somewhat more interesting, however. Alam
pleads for modernization of the madrasas, but argues, echoing the views of
most ‘ulama, that the state’s professed interest in promoting such modernisation
is suspect and that it is actually aimed at diluting their religious identity.
It is for the madrasas themselves to take the initiative in modernising, he
contends. He sees hope in the fact that most madrasa students and their
parents do, in fact, want modern subjects to be included in the madrasa syllabus,
although many madrasa managers might oppose this proposal, seeing this as
threatening to undermine their own privileges and authority. Another major
problem in this regard, Alam says, is shortage of funds to employ teachers
of such subjects.

Alam makes a list of suggestions to help promote the modernization agenda
that he sees as indispensable for the madrasas. Some of these are realistic but
others are simply utopian, for want of a better word. Thus, he suggests that
the Ministry of Human Resources Development should establish a central board of
madrasa education which should ensure that the madrasas be modeled on
government central schools. The madrasas should be affiliated to this board, instead of
to state boards of madrasa education (but why, he does not say). Three-fourth
of the syllabus should consist of the course prescribed by the National Council
for Educational Research and Training, the rest being devoted to traditional
religious learning. Half the seats in the madrasas should be reserved for
girl students. These are ambitious proposals, of course, but about the virulent
opposition that they are bound to encounter from the ‘ulama Alam has nothing
to say.

More sensible and less unrealistic suggestions that Alam has to offer
include state funding for madrasa modernisation through NGOs and panchayati raj
institutions; a law to punish newspapers and individuals who make false
allegations against the madrasas; a separate budget for the development of
minority institutions; madrasa teachers’ training programmes and literacy
drives among Muslims. To all these obviously welcome suggestions Alam could have
been added the urgent need for a thorough revaluation and revision of the content
of the syllabus madrasa beyond simply the inclusion of certain modern subjects.
As many Muslim modernists themselves continue to plead (despite being ignored
or dubbed as ‘agents’ of the ‘unbelieving’ West by the ‘ulama) there is a
strong case to be made for active intervention to address such troubling issues as
the fierce sectarianism, the negative images of non-Muslims, and the misogynist
understandings of Islamic law that are strongly defended by the conservative
‘ulama and that are reinforced and reproduced in many madrasas. Unless these
core issues are also taken up in earnest, the other reforms that Alam has
suggested would appear to serve little purpose.

Overall, the book provides a broad survey of madrasa education in India
which readers who are not familiar with numerous similar books already available
might find useful. It is not a major contribution to the existing corpus of
writings on madrasas, however, although clearly the publishers feel otherwise since
they have translated and published the book in Hindi and English as well. The
book contains numerous factual errors which clearly suggests the author’s own
lack of familiarity with the subject that he attempts to deal with. Thus, he claims,
without citing any evidence, that 80 per cent of Indian Muslim children
below the age of 15 study in madrasas (p.82), and that 10 crore (that is, 100
million) Hindus and Muslims migrated in the wake of the Partition (p.32). Alam
contradicts himself when, at one point, he attributes the mushrooming of
madrasas in India in recent decades to petrodollars, but elsewhere insists
that few madrasas have received financial aid from Arab donors. Several of his
statements are also tendentious and are clearly in the apologetic mode.
Thus, he rightly castigates conservative Americans and their Hindutva counterparts
for painting Muslims in the most lurid colours, but at the same time he
conveniently ignores the fact that similar images of the non-Muslim religious ‘other’ are
shared by a number of Muslims, especially among Islamist groups, and are
also reflected in the writings of numerous ‘ulama associated with several
madrasas.  It appears that the author’s passionate urge to defend the madrasas from
criticism far outweighs his commitment to dispassionate scholarship.