‘Madrasas Being Targeted By Sectarian Forces On Survey Pretext’

A Muslim organisation has objected to Uttar Pradesh government’s move to carry out a survey of madrasas. Maulana Arshad Madani, president of Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind, clarified that his objection is to the ‘sectarian mentality’ in the current situation, not to the order to conduct a survey of madrasas.

“The way sectarian forces have created an atmosphere of hatred throughout the country in the last few years, and the role (that) is being played by the government in this regard, the Muslims are forced to believe that every policy is coming forward to destroy their existence,” Madani said.

He said that madrasas are being targeted by sectarian forces and their intentions have to be understood. He also said that they have always tried to allow religious institutions to run on the basis of the rights given in the Constitution, but “sectarians are involved in a conspiracy to destroy them.”

Madani claimed that madrasas in Assam are being bulldozed for being centres of terrorism and offices of Al-Qaeda, spreading unrest. “The Chief Minister of Assam is trying to justify the demolition of madrasas by making baseless accusations. They cannot present any proof till doomsday,” he said.

The Uttar Pradesh government recently announced that a survey of “unrecognised” madrasas would be conducted in the state to gather information about the number of teachers, curriculum and basic facilities available there.

Minister of State for Minority Affairs Danish Azad Ansari said the government will conduct the survey according to the requirement of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights in connection with the availability of basic facilities to the students in madrasas.

During the survey, details such as the name of the madrasa and the institution operating it, whether it is running in a private or rented building, the number of students studying there, and information regarding facilities of drinking water, furniture, electricity supply and toilet will be collected, Ansari said.

Information regarding the number of teachers in a madrassa, its curriculum, source of income and its affiliation with any non-government organisation will also be gathered, he said.

At present, there are a total of 16,461 madrassas in Uttar Pradesh, out of which 560 are given government grants.

Meanwhile, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati last week accused the BJP government of interfering in the running of private madrasas in Uttar Pradesh on the pretext of conducting surveys and “terrorising” the Muslim community.

In a tweet in Hindi, Mayawati said, “The complaints of the Muslim community being exploited, neglected and affected by riots have been common since the time of the Congress, and now they are being oppressed and terrorised by the BJP who came to power by doing narrow politics in the name of appeasement. This is sad and condemnable.”

“The BJP government has an evil intent on madrassas in Uttar Pradesh. The attempts to interfere in the private madrassas, which run on donations by the community, in the name of survey is inappropriate. They should focus on improving the condition of the government and government-aided madrasas,” she said.