Madrassa reform has become a joke

Daily Times, July 5,
EDITORIAL: Madrassa reform has become a joke

The federal government’s plan for madrassa reform is a classical example of the one-step forward two-steps backwards approach. We have been hearing about it for three years but nothing concrete seems to have come out of it. First, the madrassa boards decided to dispute the plan. Then, backed by the religio-political parties, the madrassas defied the federal government’s requirement for change of syllabi and registration. Now, we are told, the provincial governments have expressed “reservations” about the plan and suggested “revisions” (another way of shelving it), forcing Islamabad to suspend the operation of the plan.

Interestingly, while the provinces have their viewpoints on the plan, our information suggests that none of the four provincial governments has reported to Islamabad on the implementation — perhaps non-implementation — of the previous phase of the madrassa reform plan even though together they had received Rs 490 million in FY2004-5 to do exactly that.

Such is the lack of implementation of the plan that until now the federal government does not even have a reliable figure of the total number of madrassas in the country. The religion ministry and the ministries of interior and education put out different figures in this regard. One previous report put the number at 11,000. This is generally the figure used by subsequent reports compiled by Pakistani and foreign researchers. As always, we are told that the federal government is in the “process of preparing” a questionnaire which it will circulate very soon. How soon that will be is anybody’s guess. Moreover, as this newspaper reported on July 3, “The recently constituted Wafaqul Maddaris Board, to be chaired by the federal education minister and including the federal religious affairs minister and interior minister as members, has yet to start functioning formally”.

The provinces’ reservations are mostly technical: the selection of teachers, their qualifications, their salary structure and differences with public school teachers. There is also the question of who will have writ over these madrassas: will they be supervised by the federal or provincial government or run by the local authorities or be autonomous in some sense.

Of course, the modalities need to be worked out. No plan can proceed without straightening out the technicalities. But what rankles is the reluctance to move at pace. It seems that madrassa reform is not a priority although by all indications it should be. The education ministry spokesperson says the federal government has already allocated one billion rupees for madrassa reform for FY2005-6. But the funds can only be disbursed after the provinces have reported to the federal government on the progress of the previous phase and how they have spent that money. But there is no news as yet that the federal government and the provinces are likely to deliberate the issue anytime soon. All we know is that the provinces’ reservations will “soon” be discussed at an inter-provincial ministers’ meeting and by the federal madrassa reform committee. This essentially means the reforms process has again been shelved.

Somewhere along the line some important people are filibustering. And they are doing so either because they simply do not find it necessary or expedient to push the reforms through. Why are such people not being cashiered? What cannot be compromised is the requirement to put the reforms in place quickly. Three years was a long-enough period to get things moving and make them visible. It is important to ask the question of why that hasn’t been done and who might be responsible for this procrastination. Reforming the madrassas is important not only from the perspective of bringing them into the normal education loops but also for security reasons. Let’s not delay the process anymore. *

EDITORIAL #2: Muslims need to rethink the idea of movement in Islam

The case of Imrana Ilahi in India is a moment of deep reflection for Muslims everywhere. According to the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), the powerful Islamic body that deals with the personal affairs of the Muslims of India, a woman raped by her father-in-law must separate from her husband. For the AIMPLB, the issue is simple and the edict on Imrana’s fate culled from Islamic rulings. Case closed. Fortunately, the ruling has sparked a storm in India. Rights groups as well as Muslim women have decided to slam the edict rather than take it lying down. It is important for Pakistan for two reasons: one, it deals with the problem of stagnation in Islamic jurisprudence; two, an earlier AIMPLB ruling on alimony in the Shah Bano case is generally regarded as a watershed event since it helped raise the rightwing Hindutva edifice in India’s politics.

A simple question would be: Why must a woman separate from her husband if she has been raped? Should someone be punished for something that he or she hasn’t done? If the answer is that regardless of circumstances, having been raped by a father-in-law the woman cannot now have conjugal relations with her husband, the son of the man who has raped her, then too it is absurd reasoning since it puts the onus on the woman rather than the man who has raped her.

There are also denominational differences here which means that the edict does not enjoy the status of being consensual. Why must an edict that is denominational rather than consensual be made the basis for such a vital decision? Imrana herself, having been subjected to one trauma, now faces the prospect of another. She wasn’t at fault in the first instance and she isn’t in the second. Yet, she has been wronged once and now the ulema want to wrong her the second time.

This is patently absurd and we think it is important for the enlightened ulema to come forward and look at such laws and edicts anew. Islamic jurisprudence has stagnated for long. As Allama Iqbal said in his Sixth Lecture, Muslims need to rethink the idea of movement in Islam. *