Madhya Pradesh: Students’ fate in limbo as govt cracks down on madrasas

A 12-year-old girl is among the four students enrolled at the Barkatullah Madrasa in Vidisha city of Madhya Pradesh, but a cloud of uncertainty looms over her further education at the institution, which now faces closure for allegedly enrolling non-Muslim students and projecting inflated enrolment figures to avail government benefits.

The sixth grader’s grandmother, who works as a domestic help, said joining another school would be difficult for her granddaughter. “I don’t know how will she continue her studies as a government school had already refused admission to her earlier,” the woman said, requesting anonymity.

A large number of students enrolled in various madrasas across the Hindi heartland state stare at a similar situation as the 12-year-old girl.

Barkatullah Madrasa is among 1,012 madrasas in Madhya Pradesh that have faced closure over the last three years — the state had a total of 2,689 madrasas in 2021. The renewal of registration of another 577 madrasas is on hold over a raft of issues, including enrolment of non-Muslim students, poor infrastructure and fake enrolments to avail government benefits, officials said, adding that the registration is being put on hold on case-to-case basis.

“As of now, only 1,100 madrasas, are being run in Madhya Pradesh for providing religious knowledge with modern education,” an administrative officer of the MP Madrasa Board said.

State school education minister Rao Uday Pratap Singh said a fresh inspection is going on of all 1,677 madrasas.

“We will not allow religious education at madrasas to non-Muslim students. We will break this nexus and close down such institutions,” the minister said.

The government crackdown followed a probe report that pointed at alleged irregularities in some madrasas.

“We found that non-Muslim students were enrolled fraudulently for receiving funds for mid-day meals, (and) not for conversion,” a school education department official, aware of the findings of the inquiry conducted following a complaint from the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), said.

The official, however, denied claims of conversion attempt at the educational institutions for Muslims.

Manjeet Kapoor, who runs Barkatullah Madrasa said: “I was just helping non-Muslim students. The madrasa was opened only for Muslim students to provide them modern education, but later it became a place for students of all religions.”

In October 2022, Manoj Kaushal, a child rights activist from Vidisha, wrote to NCPCR claiming that non-Muslim students were enrolled at madrasas in a tribal area. A team from NCPCR led by chairperson Priyank Kanoongo visited two madrasas, Barkatullah and Mariam Deeniyat, and found 48 non-Muslim students.

Kanoongo then wrote to the state government in December 2022 and aired suspicion that these students might be converted. The panel wrote to the state government two more time, the latest in April this year, seeking an inspection of madrasas and action against those enrolling non-Muslim students.

“More than 9,500 non-Muslim students were found studying in over half of the total Madrasas inspected in 2023. However, no action was taken in this matter due to Model Code of Conduct imposed for assembly elections,” a Madrasa Board official said.

On August 16, the BJP-led state government issued an order seeking verification of non-Muslim students at the madrasas. In another order, on August 28, school education department asked district collectors to ensure all madrasas affiliated to the Madrasa Board were following the laid down guidelines.

Kaushal, who first raised the matter, admitted that enrolment of non-Muslim students was primarily to boost numbers. “We didn’t find any students who can say he/she was forced to study. Only a few (of these non-Muslim) students visited madrasas while most of them were enrolled on papers only. The numbers were inflated to get benefits of the mid-day meal.”

Under mid-day meal, a madrasa gets ₹6-8 per day per student.

The Madrasa Board and Association of Madrasas said they were already facing financial crises due to non-realisation of the Centre’s aid provided under the Scheme for Providing Education to Madrasas/Minorities (SPEMM) to give salary to teachers, books and uniform since 2016.

“The Centre didn’t release fund for the past three years. We are writing to them,” a Madrasa Board official said.

Professor Syed Imad-Uddin, former chairperson of MP Madrasa Board, said Madrasa is for imparting Islamic education. “The central government launched SPEMM for providing modern scientific education to students with Islamic education. The decision was for the upliftment of Muslims and non-Muslim students could not be enrolled at Madrasas,” he said.

Amid the ongoing uproar over the government crackdown, the grandmother of the sixth grader says her only concern is for her granddaughter to get education. “From where, it doesn’t matter.”