“5,000 madrasas in Uttar Pradesh (UP) have applied for the registration to get them recognized since 2016, and that remains pending, because it doesn’t get any response from the authorities. This also put the education of more than 7 lakh students at stake”, Dr Iftikhar Ahmad Javed, Chairman of Uttar Pradesh Madarsa Board Education (UPMBE) told Maktoob.
Dr Javed’s statement comes in light of the recent notification by Uttar Pradesh Government’s Basic Education Department (BED) that mandates the closure of all “unrecognised madrasas” within the state or will have to pay a fine of Rs 10000 daily for non-compliance.
On 23 October, the BEDs of various districts issued notices to more than 12 madrasas stating that the madrasas that are registered with the UPMBE would be allowed to operate and the rest would be either shut down or will pay a fine of Rs 10,000 per day.
Move to polarise 2024, Assembly Elections
Though madrasa heads and clerics have no issue with getting recognition and registration, the state’s polarised atmosphere, politicisation of the institution, criminalization of the working of the madrasas and vilification by the media have made it difficult for some to function. Most of them are self-funded and not receiving any funds or donations from the state government.
Javed, the chairman of UPMBE called it a warm-up polarisation exercise by the Yogi-led UP government before the 2024 Assembly polls in UP.
Speaking with Maktoob, Javed said, “This in any way is not going to benefit any madrasa or any students getting an education there. There is no good intention behind it. More than 5,000 madrasas are pending for registration as the registration process was halted by the previous government 8 years ago and the ruling government didn’t reinstate the pause. If the government wants madrasas to get the registration, they should open the registration portal.”
Dr Javed added that the governments in the state and centre boasts about siding with the Pasmanda Muslims but studies of more than 7 lakh students in 5,000 unregistered madrasas are getting affected because of the halt in the registration process. “It’s nobody’s fault but the Government’s.”
When asked if the move is going to help the government, the UPMBE head said, “Yes, this is the only motive, they will target the madrasas, and the news channels will vilify the institution by running propaganda against them as they’ve always been doing and some seminaries will be criminalised too and all this will help the ruling party turn the election in their favour by creating the bad image of Muslims and the madrasas.”
The previous year, on 31 August, the Yogi-Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh Government in another notice ordered the survey of all the functioning madrasas in the state to assess and gather information about the operations, source of funding, mode of education, resources available and facilities.
The motive behind doing so, by the UP government was cited as, “betterment for the madrasas”.
It is worth noting that the condition of the government schools is in shambles as more than 3 lakh children are out of school at the primary level with Uttar Pradesh being at the top in the entire country having the most children who are not enrolled followed by Bihar and Gujarat, as per the Union Minister of State for Education, Annapurna Devi while replying to a query in the Lok Sabha in March 2023.
Since the order was announced, government officials have been flocking to the madrasas for the ‘survey’ and to assess the mentioned areas in the institution as a part of the survey.
A team of government officials visited the Madrasa Azharul Uloom last year and they spoke with the clerics, students and the caretakers, and took the information required saying that they have to submit a report to the higher authorities.
The Madrasa Azharul Uloom in Bulandshahr district of UP is a 15-year-old madrasa established by Maulana Mohammad Azhar, who also resides on the campus along with the students.
Maulana Azhar told Maktoob, “The officials came and told us that they want information for the survey. They took all the data they wanted. They checked the premises, and our records, spoke with us, with some of our students and left. We didn’t object as we didn’t have anything to hide.”
At present 130 students, are enrolled and living on the campus, their expenses, from education to food to hostel are taken care of by the madrasa only. The madrasa imparts education till 5th standard and students are taught, Hindi, Urdu, English and Mathematics, apart from The Quran, Hifz and religious education.
“For subjects other than religion, we invite guest faculties, as we are not government aided and we on our own cannot afford to have an in-house teacher,” said the cleric.
The Azharul Uloom Madrasa is self-funded and run by public donations of any kind including food grains, clothes, books or anything that supports the education of the students. It doesn’t receive any financial aid from the government.
Azhar added, “If the survey done by the government is for any betterment of the students then it’s good, otherwise we are self-sufficient and doing well with Allah’s grace and will continue to do so with so many kind people facilitating us and the students’ education.”
But does the UP Basic Education Department have a right to look or object matters related to madrasas?
No, as per the Uttar Pradesh Madrasa Education Council Act 2004/ Regulations 2016, any official of the Basic Education Department can neither conduct an inspection/ survey nor issue notices to any of the madrasas. The only authority entitled to do so is the Minority Welfare Department or Uttar Pradesh Madrasa Board of Education.
The Minority Welfare Department was established in the year 1995 and since its inception, the matters related to the madrasas were transferred to the UPMBE which comes under the department.
“The Minority Welfare Department and the UPMBE are appointed to look at the entire work of madrasas, interference of any other unauthorized department is illegal and wrong and will not be accepted. Do we interfere in the Education Department?”, said Javed.
As per UPMBE, at present, there are about 25,213 madrasas in the state 16, 462 are recognized by the UP government leaving at least 8,000 unrecognized. Out of these 25,000 plus madrasas, only 560 are aided by the government.
He also said, “On one hand the government is asking madrasas to register, on the other hand, they are not letting them register, who are they trying to fool? The government and the minority welfare department need to put in the efforts to get the registration process restarted and stop the displacement of responsibility by putting it on Muslims.”
Objecting to the notices issued to the madrasas by the BED, Javed said, “It is noticed that the officers of BED often visit and inspect the seminaries without being a competent authority to do so and even issue notices to the institutions. This is against the law and opposite to what the Act says.” Ever since the directive by the BED came to light Dr. Javed has been echoing the same.
On 26 October, Shubham Shukla, the District Basic Education Officer of Muzaffarnagar, in a press release said that the notice issued to the madrasas had been reverted as “the notices were issued by mistake” and “the Block Education Officer of Purkaji block was only instructed to send this notice to the schools and not to the madrasas.”
It noted, “In this regard, a clarification is also obtained from the Block education officer of Purkaji.”
The officer in the release also stated that the District Minority Welfare Department has the right to take any decision concerning madrasas and “the notices issued by the Block Education officer of Purkaji are cancelled with an immediate effect.”
Moreover, the other District Basic Education Departments are yet to take any action on the same.
It’s state interference & no benefit
Maulana Sagheer Ahmed teaches more than 300 students at a three-decade madrasa in the Aligarh district of Uttar Pradesh. Madrasa Tameer e Millat has been imparting education to students since 1985 and many of its students are heading the higher positions at other madrasas, universities and colleges.
Maulana Ahmed believes that it is the quality education of the students that keeps the institution running for so long that too without receiving any government donation or funds.
The Madrasa is registered with UPMBE and along with the religious education, they also teach other traditional subjects up to standard 12th. The premises of the madrasa also have a residential space for the students to stay over and learn. All this is provided to each student free of cost.
Echoing his sentiments, Ahmed said, “If the government schools will provide quality education, the students will willingly go there and won’t attend any school or madrasa that doesn’t provide it. We with all that we could gather, provide them everything in our capacity.”
On being asked why Madrasa Tameer e Millat doesn’t ask for any fees from any of its students, Ahmed said, “The students that come here are mostly from marginalized backgrounds with very low socio-economic conditions. Getting education at the very place for some is like a dream coming true and then if we levy heavy fees on them, will they ever get an opportunity to read or write?”
Gateway to knowledge for all
Ahmed also talked about how madrasas are an avenue to seek knowledge, mainstreaming students and making them well-equipped with religious and scientific temperament.
“The first word of the Holy Quran revealed was “Iqra” which means to read, to seek knowledge. So madrasa is for everyone who is seeking knowledge without differentiating between poor or rich. It is also a place of worship and a place to gain knowledge and the doors are open for everyone”, said Maulana Ahmed.
When asked, if the madrasa needs any assistance from the government, Maulana Ahmed said, “We cooperate with everything they ask for, be it getting recognised with the board or cooperating with survey or if they ask for any data from us but we are betrayed time and again by the governments.”
He added, “They tell us that this is for the betterment of the madrasas, enter our Madrasas with pre-occupied agenda in their minds and after a few days what we see is the vilification of Madrasas in the media and all Islamophobia that comes along.”
Ahmed stressed that if the government wants to facilitate us the best they can do is halt the propaganda run by big Television channels against us and if they want to benefit us, they are most welcome, but what happens most times is otherwise.
“The better than best would be to leave us on our own, we are running the institutions with the good intentions and all of our knowledge. They should stop negatively interfering”, he concluded.
Special Investigation Team to probe foreign funding of madrasas
The UP government on the same day that is October 23, when BED sent notices to the madrasas, formed a three-member Special Investigation Team to probe into funds received by the madrasas from abroad. The team will be led by an Additional Director General, Anti-Terrorism Squad Mohit Agarwal. The other two members of the team are the director of the Minority Welfare Department and the Superintendent of Police, Cyber cell.
The team will access the bank accounts of the madrasas which are receiving funds from foreign, how that money is being used, and will also check if the money received is being used for the functioning of the madrasa or any other activity.
Dr Javed told Maktoob, “The agency is likely to be focusing more on madrasas located in districts sharing the border with Nepal which includes Siddharth Nagar, Bahraich, Shrawasti, Balrampur Maharajganj, Basti, Azamgarh and many others.”
“The government after more than a year of survey is now coming up with this new technique to target madrasas because they couldn’t find anything potential against them and now they will plant one”, he added.
The chairman of the UPMBE further said that the government took more than a year to complete a survey and we are yet to see what it bought. In a year they only managed to tell us that out of 25,000 madrasas in the state only 561 are government aided.
“The government officials are analysing the data they’ve collected. They now want to survey foreign funding, they can do but what they did last year and more?”
Both the clerics, Ahmed and Azhar came up with the same thought when asked what they think about the government probing the foreign fundings of the madrasas.
Both of them said, “They can do a thousand surveys and data collection, we will cooperate as mandated but they will not find anything. Our work and intention are clean”.
Moreover, the government has not specified any period for the probe to start on foreign findings in the madrasas.
 have applied for the registration to get them recognized since 2016, and that remains pending, because it doesn’t get any response from the authorities. This also put the education of more than 7 lakh students at stake”, Dr Iftikhar Ahmad Javed, Chairman of Uttar Pradesh Madarsa Board Education (UPMBE) told Maktoob.){kind=link}