Click to play videoNew Delhi: A seemingly innocuous proposal from the Centre to offer incentives to madrassas so that they can celebrate National Holidays has the Muslim community up in arms.
The Centre has proposed to offer additional grants to nearly all the 12,000 madrassas, which get Government funds, to celebrate national festivals namely Independence Day and Republic Day. The Government also wants to make it mandatory for all institutions including private schools to hoist the National Flag on these days.
In the National Development Council meeting last month the Government came under severe criticism from the BJP-ruled states for making special allocations for minority upliftment.
Now the criticism is coming from within the community for what is being called interference in madrassa education.
“This means you are trying to breed this thought and misgiving that people in madrassas are not patriotic. This certainly can not be supported,” Spokesperson, All India Muslim Personal Board, S Q R Illayas said.
The Government has earlier faced stiff resistance in its bid to modernise madrassa education. A proposal to set up a central madrassa board was shelved under pressure from the clergy last year.
Inadvertently or otherwise, policy makers seem to overlook the politics of education while drafting the 11th Five Year Plan.
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