Bengal’s Madrasa Question: Who Allowed 2,396 to Operate?

The question becomes more serious because these are not ordinary private coaching centres. They are madrasas Islamic religious educational institutions serving predominantly Muslim students.

No government can permit an educational institution to function outside the regulatory framework merely because it happens to be a religious institution. The Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, but religious freedom does not create a parallel administrative system. An institution educating children, collecting money, appointing teachers and operating in society cannot claim immunity from registration, inspection, minimum infrastructure or scrutiny. There is no reason why a Muslim institution should be treated differently.

In fact, precisely because madrasas combine education with religious instruction, scrutiny becomes more not less important. The State has a legitimate interest in knowing what children are being taught, whether prescribed educational standards are followed, who controls the institutions and where their funds come from. The current survey reportedly examined precisely these questions. The figure of 2,396, therefore, raises another uncomfortable question: where was the government all these years?

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The issue becomes more sensitive in West Bengal because several of the districts where action has been concentrated are close to the Bangladesh border. Among the districts reporting substantial numbers of madrasas facing action are Malda, Uttar Dinajpur, Murshidabad, Nadia and South 24 Parganas. Reports say 44 madrasas in Malda, 37 in Uttar Dinajpur, 32 in South 24 Parganas and 25 each in Nadia and Murshidabad are among those facing closure notices. That geographical factor cannot simply be dismissed.

There have also been serious allegations about radicalisation and anti-national activity involving some unrecognised or Khariji madrasas. Minority Affairs Minister Kshudiram Tudu has said complaints had repeatedly been received and referred to instances of anti-national activities being carried out from seminaries. BJP leaders have separately spoken of radicalisation in border areas.
There is an increasingly familiar danger in public debate - legitimate scrutiny of a Muslim institution is immediately portrayed as an attack on Muslims, while legitimate concerns about radicalisation are sometimes treated as though they are themselves communal. Muslims are citizens of India and Muslim educational institutions have the same right to function lawfully as institutions belonging to any other community. But citizenship also means accepting the same legal obligations. Minority status cannot mean regulatory immunity.

The government must now conduct a transparent institution-by-institution audit. It should establish which madrasas merely lacked paperwork, which failed infrastructure requirements, which deviated from the prescribed curriculum and, where credible evidence exists, whether any were connected to unlawful or extremist activity. Funding sources, management structures and links with organisations outside the recognised system deserve particular scrutiny.

The funding question cannot be brushed aside. If these unrecognised madrasas were not receiving government grants, who was financing them? Donations? Trusts? Individuals? Organisations? What were the sources of that money, and who audited it? The government survey itself examined funding sources. The answers should now be made public.
The Khariji madrasa question requires especially careful attention. An institution outside the recognised education system is not automatically an extremist institution. But neither should being outside the recognised system make it invisible to the State. This is where Bengal’s experiment has significance beyond Bengal.

A democratic government cannot surrender administrative space because an issue is religiously sensitive. Secularism does not mean that the State must close its eyes when a minority institution violates the law. On the contrary, genuine secularism requires the same law to apply to everyone.

The government must therefore go beyond the politically convenient act of shutting 252 madrasas. It must answer the larger question exposed by its own survey - how did 2,396 unapproved madrasas acquire the freedom to operate in the first place? The real scandal is not merely that illegal institutions existed. It is that the State apparently knew or failed to know that they existed.

If an institution is legal, let it function without fear. If it is deficient, make it comply. If it is unauthorised, shut it down. And if there is credible evidence of criminal or extremist activity, investigate it ruthlessly under the law.

The rule must be brutally simple -religion may explain an institution’s character; it cannot exempt the institution from the law.